Approaching the phenomenon of flow induced converter slopping by analytical considerations, numerical simulation and cold experiments

Flow induced slopping represents a severe problem in operating AOD converters since high dynamic torques are introduced into the foundation via the torque support. In the long run, this could lead to inacceptable wear of the support bearings. During this study the phenomenon of flow induced slopping has been studied by means of (a) analytic considerations, (b) cold water experiments and (c) numerical simulations. Based on a simply tank model that is mounted on a set of load cells characteristic slopping modes and frequencies are detected. In a first example, a collapsing water column is considered. In this case it could be shown that all three investigation methods lead to very similar results with respect to the slopping mode and the slopping frequency. In the second case the bath is excited by gas injection. In that case numerical simulations are not straightforward since they have to cover the gas plume behaviour as well as a free surface flow. Thereby, it could be shown that while Reynolds averaged turbulence models suppress slopping the combined effect could be resolved by a multi-phase large eddy model.