Effect of bottom stirring on bath mixing and transfer behavior during scrap melting in BOF steelmaking: A review

Basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steelmaking is a widely used method for steelmaking production, and the bath stirring has a significant influence on dynamics of bath flow and mixing. Therefore, the effect of bottom gas flowrate, nozzle number and configuration, and bottom gas distribution mode on bath stirring are summarized in this study. Reasonable matching of bottom gas flowrate, nozzle number and configuration, as well as intensive study on the coupling effect of gas flowrate gradient and exchange frequency on non-uniform stirring would receive more and more attention in the coming years. With wide concern on the low-carbon and high-efficient production for BOF steelmaking, as a kind of recyclable iron-containing resource, the rapid melting and reasonable utilization of scrap in converter bath were emphasized in recent works, which could be promoted with high-efficient bottom stirring. The effect of bottom stirring on heat and mass transfer during scrap melting process was reviewed in this work, and the influence mechanism of bottom stirring on coupled heat and mass transfer should be further investigated. In addition, an overview of recently published physical and numerical simulation describing the bottom stirring and its effect on scrap melting would provide an outlook for future work.