Monitoring Liquid-Gas Interactions with an Accelerometer

Abstract

The injection and/or generation of gases in liquid metal is manifested by low amplitude vibration of the containment vessel. For the present work, an accelerometer was attached to a wall of such a vessel to monitor liquid-gas interactions for three different processes commonly used by steelmakers. The processes analysed in the present study were: (1) mixing of molten steel, (2) wire feeding of volatile reagents and (3) decarburization of hot metal by the top blowing of oxygen. In general, it was shown that the mixing power input, i.e. the degree of agitation, imparted to a melt is proportional to a representative value of the accelerometer signal raised to the 1.6 power. This study showed the accelerometer to be a viable transducer for monitoring the interaction between liquids and gases when direct contact with the liquid phase is not practical.