Calculation of heating of a steel rod used in technical aluminum refining

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to calculate heating of a steel rod (a crystallizer), determine its heating time up to the predetermined temperature and estimate the temperature to which the metal heats up if it is partially submerged in the aluminum melt. The heating of the steel rod immersed in the molten aluminum is calculated in the temperature range from 670 to 810°С. Based on the conducted calculations of the crystallizer heating, a new method of technical aluminum refining is proposed and its efficiency is substantiated. The presented method involves iron and silicon impurities extraction from the aluminum melt through its rapid cooling by the introduction of a massive steel body (a crystallizer) into the surface layer of metal. It is found out that the difference between the temperature of the rod end immersed in the melt (hot end) and the temperature of molten aluminum (rod holding time in the melt is 30s; immersion depth - 5 cm) is in the range of 226-260°C. Significant temperature head between the crystallizer and aluminum melt provides the possibility to use the proposed method for deep refining of technical aluminum.