Design of Probe for Detection of Slag in Molten Steel A Feasibility Study

To detect slag particles in liquid steel an electro-resistivity probe cannot be used as it suffers
from the problem of wetting and uncertainty exists at what local fluid velocities wetting does not
occur. In such cases, a new probe that would not suffer from the above limitation was thought to
be designed by applying the principles of electromagnetic induction, as has been successfully
applied to detect slag entrainment. A schematic of such slag detection system is shown in
Fig.1
[1]
.




Fig.1 Principle of electromagnetic slag detection
[1]



The slag detection system as shown in Fig.1, works on the principle of electromagnetic
induction. When current flows through a conductor, magnetic field is induced perpendicular to
the direction of current, around the conductor, whose direction is given by right hand grip rule. If
the conductor is near another conducting material, then eddy currents can be induced in that
conducting material provided the primary current is capable of producing changing magnetic
field. So if an AC carrying conductor is taken near a conducting material, eddy currents are
induced in a direction to opposite to the direction of the primary current. Because the eddy
currents are in opposite direction, the magnetic field, that they produce, will be in the direction
opposite to the magnetic field of the primary current. Therefore, the flow of primary current will
be impeded; this impedance will be proportional to amount of eddy current produced in the
conducting material, which is proportional to the conductivity of the conducting material itself.
Thus any change in conductivity of material can be detected from the change in impedance in the
circuit of the primary conductor. The only requisite for the above phenomenon to occur is that
the material in which eddy currents are to be induced, should be conducting, regardless of its
magnetic properties.

Steel is 1000 times more electrically conducting than slag
[1]
and thus the application of the
electromagnetic induction is ideal for slag detection and the fact that these detectors are being
used for around two decades
[1]
and that it works at high fluid velocities as high as 4m/s, speaks
for its viability. Hence such a kind of probe was thought to be developed for detecting the slag
droplets in molten steel, while the bath is being gas-stirred.

Since a single loop of conductor is enough to induce eddy currents in molten steel bath and also
to detect the changes in impedance, the probe will have only a single electrical loop unlike the
slag detection system described in ref.1. It is important that the primary current carrying
conductor has good electrical conductivity at temperatures as high as 1600 C, because the
strength of eddy currents is also proportional to the intensity of current flowing through the
conductor. Hence it was felt that water cooled copper enclosed by an insulating shell of Al
2
O
3
or
ZrO
2
will be a good loop to induce eddy currents in liquid steel. In order to keep the probe as
small as possible and to provide sufficient cooling to the conductor, the cooling tube itself is
made as the conductor. A longitudinal section of probe is shown in Fig.2a. It consists of a long
upper cylindrical body (height, not shown in the figure) and a short lower torus. It is the torus
along with certain length of the probe that will be immersed into the melt in a direction that
through the hole of the torus the liquid metal passes. In the torus, magnetic field lines will be
produced as shown in Fig. 2a. Although magnetic field will be produced all along the length of
the copper tube, it will be intense only at the torus and that too concentrated only inside the torus
whereas at the outside, it is insignificant (property of such loops).



































Fig. 2a Schematic representation of the torus of the probe setting eddy currents in the liquid metal due to
its magnetic field
Fig. 2b Section of the cylindrical portion of the probe enclosing the two copper tubes
Directions of flow of
current as well as water
Magnetic
field lines

Eddy currents

Outer shell


Copper tubes

Torus
Fig. 2a
Fig. 2b
After some time the probe is immersed in the melt, the shell reaches the temperature of that of
the melt. Cooling of the shell to temperatures below the melting point of melt is detrimental, as it
might freeze the nearby liquid metal, form crusts and block the passage of liquid through the
torus. Hence the copper tube is separated from the shell by some air gap, although to allow heat
transfer by radiation, but to avoid heat transfer by conduction. To ensure this gap, there must be
some supports provided at certain locations to suspend the copper tube in space that would
inevitably establish contact between the tube and shell. However this heat conduction can be
kept minimal by keeping only few, weakly conducting supports of very less contact areas.
Therefore any heat conduction between shell and tube, if present, will be only through these
supports.

A more detailed section of the probe labeled with dimensions can be found in Fig. 3. The details
of dimensions of the probe are as follows:

s
= 2mm; shell wall thickness

t
= 1mm; copper tube wall thickness
R
t
= 3mm; inner radius of the copper tube
Since the upper cylindrical body of the probe has to accommodate two copper tubes in it, the
diameter of the shell there, is larger than at the lower part of probe. Therefore, there are two
different shell radii,
R
s
= 4.5 mm at the lower torus with 2 mm gap between the tube and shell and
= 9.5mm at the upper cylindrical body, with 3mm gaps between the probes and the shell.
In order to provide sufficient pathway for the melt, the hole of the torus is kept as large as 25mm
diameter. With all these, the toroidal part of the probe will have a diameter of 50mm.






















Fig.3 Schematic of portion of the section of probe showing its dimensions and direction of heat flow

t
s
R
s,z
R
t
s

t

In flow of
water and heat

Heat
inflow

Shell wall Tube wall

Out flow of
water and heat

Axis of
copper tube
Heat Transfer Calculations:

Cooling of copper tube is achieved by passing water through it at certain velocities. The
feasibility of the probe itself lies in the feasibility to cool it sufficiently, in order to know which,
heat balance calculations have to be done. By doing heat balances at different regions of the
probe, the temperature rise at each location of the probe, the required fluid velocity to provide
sufficient cooling and hence the required pressure difference to be maintained across the inlet
and the outlet of the copper tubes can be found.

The total hydraulic length of the probe L, is divided into n number of small elements, given by
/ n L l = A and each element is considered to be cylindrical; this consideration does not bring in
error with the torus, because if a torus is unfolded, its curved surface area and volume will be
exactly the same as that of a cylinder, with a length equal to the perimeter of a circle running
through the centre of the torus (as the one shown in Fig.2a for the direction of flow of electricity
in the torus). It is to be mentioned that n is zero at the inlet and is equal to / L l A at the outlet.
Whereas for the copper tubes, their cross section is the same throughout, the shell enclosing
these tubes have a different cross sections as could be seen from Fig.2a and 2b. Hence entire
hydraulic length of the probe is divided into three zones denoted by z =1,2 and 3. Therefore heat
balances are applied at each element in the probe, considering it to be an unfolded cylindrical
tube with length equal to the hydraulic length of the probe, but with different boundary
conditions at different zones!

It has been assumed that there is no heat transfer by conduction along the lengths of the
cylindrical walls in the probe. This is has been done to simplify the heat balance. However
disregarding such mode of heat transfer is not unsafe because, the final value of pressure would
be higher if dissipation of heat by conduction is not taken into account, which is actually a safe
estimate of pressure. Hence for a one dimensional heat flow scenario the following heat balances
are employed at each element of the probe:

At the Shell Wall:
Heat inflow rate due to Heat outflow rate due to
Rate of heating of shell
radiation from slag surface radiation to copper tube
= (1)

At the Copper Tube Wall:
Heat inflow rate due to Heat outflow rate due to
Rate of heating of tube
radiation from shell convection to water
= (2)

At the Fluid:
Heat inflow rate Heat inflow rate Heat outflow rate
Rate of heating
due to convection due to convection due to convection
of fluid
from tube by incoming fluid by outgoing fluid
+
=
(3)

Transforming those equations into expressions,
Eq.(1)
( ) ( ) ( )
4 4 4 4
,
s
p he F F s z t o s t
s
dT
mc F A T T c A T T
dt
= (4)
Eq.(2)
( ) ( )
4 4
, ,
( )
t
p z t o s t t i t f
t
dT
mc c A T T hA T T
dt
= (5)
Eq.(2)
, , ,
( )
f f
p f t i t f p f
out in
dm dm
c T hA T T c T
dt dt
| | | |
A = + A
| |
\ . \ .
(6)

where,
T is the temperature at a particular region,
h is the heat transfer coefficient,
the Stefan-Boltzman constant,
c
p
the specific heat capacity of the material in the region concerned,
he
F the view factor of an element of the shell of the probe, at an height of h
e
from the slag
surface (the expression for
he
F is given in Appendix-I)
c
z
is a constant corresponding to the view factor equivalent of the z
th
zone of the copper tube;
since in the torus the copper tube is completely viewed by the enclosing shell, c
z
=1, whereas an
80% view factor is assumed for zone 1 and 3, i.e. c
z
=0.8.
The subscripts F, s, t and f correspond to the furnace, wall regions of shell and copper tube and
fluid respectively.

It is modeled that initially the tip of the probe is kept at certain height from the slag surface and
at certain rate it is slowly lowered into the furnace; this is to slowly preheat the probe to avoid
thermal shocks; once the probe has reached the slag surface, it is inserted into the molten bath
and thereafter kept at a steady height. This is mathematically treated by applying transient the
boundary conditions. For the whole phenomena being transient, the system of heat balance
equations are solved marching with time, until steady state is reached.

The height of a particular element in the probe from the top of slag surface is found from the
following relations:
1
/ 2 2
3
probe tip
e tip torus
probe tip
h h l z
h h R z
h h L l z
+ =

= + =

+ + =

(7)
Here, once the elements in the toroidal region are reached, a constant height is assigned to avoid
an otherwise lengthy expression and this will not introduce significant error.

For a small element of length l A , the outer and inner surface areas of tube are respectively,


,
2 ( )
t o t t
A R l = + A (8)

,
2
t o t
A R l = A (9)
Since some of the properties of fluid significantly change with temperature and calculations
begin from a different temperature, to precisely capture the changes in temperature with time,
those properties are taken as temperature dependent functions
[3,4]
rather than constants.

( )
6
0.2311 1744.82 exp / 37.336 10
m
v T

= + (

kgm
-1
s
-1
(10)
6 2
0.32 0.0048 5.75 10
f m m
K T T

= + Wm
-1
K
-1
(11)
( ) Pr 1.347 19348.2 exp / 35.4
m
T = + (12)
where, v is the kinematic viscosity, K
f
is the conductivity of fluid and Pr is the Prandtl number,
all evaluated at the mean fluid temperature, given by T
m
= (T
t
+ T
f
)/2.

The values of
p
mc at each region are evaluated from the following expressions.

( ) ( )
2 2
, ,
( )
p s z s s z p
s s
mc R R l c ( = + A

(13)
( ) ( )
2 2
( )
p t t t p
t t
mc R R l c ( = + A

(14)
( ) ( )
2
p t p
f f
mc R l c = A (15)
Since c
p
of fluid is also a function of temperature, it can be calculated from the available
temperature dependent materials properties through the relation,


,
Pr
f
p f
K
c
v
= (16)
The heat transfer coefficient is taken from the Nusselt number correlation
[5]
of Gnielinski,


D
2/3
( / 8)(Re 1000) Pr
Nu
1 12.7 / 8(Pr 1)
D
f
f
'
=
' +
(17)
This correlation is considered to be accurate for a wide range of flow conditions such as
6
D
0.5 Pr 2000 and 3000 Re 5 10 < < < < , wherein the dimensionless numbers are defined as,
Pr =
p
f
v c
v
K

| |
=
|
\ .
(18)
2
Re
t
R
v
= (19)
where R
t
is the radius of the copper tube and is the fluid velocity. The friction factor in Eq.(17)
is defined as,

2
10
(1.82log Re 1.64) f

' = (20)

By doing a pressure balance, it was calculated that the pressure required to be maintained across
the inlet and outlet of the copper tubes can be expressed as,

2
8
t
L
P f
R
' A = (21)
where f ' is the friction factor as given by Eq.(20). From the velocity of fluid that would be
capable of providing sufficient cooling, the pressure difference is calculated using Eq.(21).

Initial and Boundary conditions:
At t = 0, for 0 < l < L, T
s
= T
t
= T
f
= 298 K.
At all time, at l = 0, T
f
= 298 K.
The rest of the boundary conditions are taken care by the heat balance Eq. (4).

Solution Methodology:
The Eqs. (4) to (6) are first discretised for a small increment of time and are solved for each
location in the probe for every time step. Although for a given time step, calculation of
temperatures start from the shell wall and ends in the fluid zone, new temperature value obtained
for the previous zone is not substituted for the current zone, for a given time step; this has to be
done only in the next time step. Physically this means that temperatures at all locations in the
probe are calculated simultaneously, for a given time step.

Once the tip of the probe touches the slag surface, as a result of lowering it, it is modeled that the
probe is lowered immediately 10 cm below the slag surface and thereafter solution of Eq.(4) is
forbidden and a constant shell wall temperature of 1923K (1650C) is given as a step function,
and then solved until steady state is reached.

Results:
For an element length of l = 0.01m, time step size of 0.01s, velocity of 2 m/s and hence P =
3308 Pa, and a probe lowering rate 0.5mm/s with initial h
tip
of 0.1m, the variation of
temperatures with time, at the 40
th
nodal point (hydraulic length, l = 40cm), is shown in Fig.4a.
It is inferred from the graph that the probe has been lowered into the slag surface after 250s,
marked by steps in the temperatures; for this rate of lowering, probe at this location reaches a
steady state after a time of 450s.

300
320
340
360
380
400
420
440
460
480
500
0 100 200 300 400 500
time,s
T
-
t
u
b
e

&

T
-
f
l
u
i
d

(
K
)
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
T
-
s
h
e
l
l

(

K
)
T-tube
T-fluid
T-shell


Fig. 4a Computed temperatures at l = 40cm, varying with time

The steady state temperature profile existing in all the locations of the probe can be inferred from
Fig. 4b. There are two convincing aspects about the computational result; the first thing is that
temperature of fluid has always been rising from the inlet to the outlet and secondly, the tube
temperature is higher near the outlet than at the inlet, although the shell temperatures are same
for both, because of the increased fluid temperature near the outlet, the copper tube is not capable
of dissipating much of its heat. Since re-radiation and convection effects were not assumed at the
shell of the probe, the lowest temperature itself is as high as 1230K (957C). Once again this
would only give us a safe estimate, as in reality the temperature could be expected to be much
lower than this. Still, the maximum temperature that the fluid has reached is only 388K (115 C).
At this temperature, water would start boiling (P =P
atm
+ 3308 Pa is not too high to postpone
boiling); however, it should be noted that the temperature of water has not crossed 373K (100
C) in the regions that are immersed in the melt, which is very crucial for efficient cooling.Apart
from this it could be observed that in the torus the temperature of copper has not crossed beyond
426K (153 C), which is not too high to impede the electrical conductivity of copper and
therefore its performance.

300
320
340
360
380
400
420
440
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Hydraulic length, cm
T
-
t
u
b
e

&

T
f
l
u
i
d

(
K
)
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
T
-
s
h
e
l
l

(

K
)
T-tube
T-fluid
T-shell


Fig. 4b Computed temperature profile after steady state


300
320
340
360
380
400
420
440
460
480
500
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Hydraulic length, cm

T
-
f
l
u
i
d

(
K
)


Fig. 5 Computed steady state fluid temperature profiles at different fluid velocities

Considering steady state temperature profiles for different fluid velocities of the cooling water
from Fig.5, it can be said that any velocities above 2.0m/s is safe, i.e. a minimum pressure
difference of 3300 Pa is required to operate the probe safely. Since this value of pressure is easily
achievable, the feasibility of the probe is much assured.













1.0 m/s


1.3 m/s

1.6m/s
2.0m/s
Appendix- Calculation of View Factors as a Function of Height

Several simplifying assumptions are made in this calculation; however the final expression
would be a good approximation to the actual view factors that are actually difficult to find if all
of the geometric factors are taken into account. Firstly the furnace is assumed to have a circular
cross section; any heat radiated to the probe outer surface (shell) is only from molten slag surface
and not from the furnace walls; no re-radiation is assumed at the surface of the probe; the probe
is assumed to be inserted from the centre. Although the probe will not be in the centre, we just
make an assumption in order to simplify an otherwise rigorous geometrical consideration.
Moreover, the toroidal shape of the probe, at the end, is disregarded and all the elements in that
region are assumed to be as if present in a cylinder with a view factor corresponding to a
cylindrical geometry, but with the same surface area as that of the torus. Figure-6 illustrates the
location of probe in the furnace. Any small element considered in the cylindrical body surface,
utmost can see not more than a semi circular region of the exposed surface of the furnace. Hence
only a semi circle will be considered here. In order to calculate the view factor for the element Q
as shown in Fig.6 we shall consider the definition for view factor
[5]
, which is,

1 2
1 2 1 2 2
1 12
cos cos 1
F dAdA
A s

=
}}
(22)






























y
x
z
l
r

r

F
n

s
n

O (0, 0, 0)

(R
F
, 0, 0)

A
B

P

d

Q (0, h
e
, 0)

Fig. 6 Geometric descriptions
pertaining to the view factor
between an elemental area in
the probe and the exposed
slag surface

Considering a small area
F
dA at P, at an angle of

from the x axis in the exposed surface of

furnace, the view factor between P and Q is,
2
cos cos 1
F s
F s F s
F
dF dA dA
A PQ

=
(23)
where the subscripts F and s correspond respectively to the areas of Furnace and shell of the
probe;
F
is the angle between PQ

and the unit normal vector

F
n

and
s
is the angle between
PQ

and the unit normal vector

s
n

. Since we are interested in finding view factor for a particular

element at Q having a small area of A, treating it as a constant, we take it out of the integral
while integrating.

2
cos cos
s F s
F s F
F
A
F dA
A PQ

A
=
}

(24)

Based on geometric relations, it can be written that,
2 2
cos
e
F
e
h
h r
=
+
,
2 2
sin
cos
s
e
r
h r

=
+
,
2 2 2
e
PQ h r = + and
F
dA rdrd = , substituting in Eq.(24)
and evaluating the integral in the equation between the limits r: 0 to R
F
ignoring the radius of
cylinder of the probe and for

: 0 to /2 considering only a quarter circle due to symmetry, we

get,
( )
/ 2 2
2
2 2
0 0
2 sin
F
s
F s
F
e
R
A r dr
F d
A
h r

A
=
+
} }


1
2 2
tan
s e
he F s
F e e
A Rh R
F F
A h h R

(
| | A
= =
( |
+
( \ .


(25)


The lower limit of integration for r has been taken to be as 0 rather than the outer radius of the
shell of the probe, only to get a simple final expression for view factor.




REFERENCES:

1. http://www.millennium-steelstorage.com/articles/2004/pp173-176%20MS04.pdf

2. http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/chpt_12/6.html

3. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-thermal-properties-d_162.html

4. http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/explan4.html#cond

5. John H. Lienhard IV/ John H. Lienhard V A Heat Transfer Textbook, Phlogiston Press.