Application of Fluid Analysis to Water Treatment Plants in The Iron and Steel Industry

by Hiroki Satoh

Publisher - Nippon Steel Corporation, Futtsu, Japan

Category - General Novel

Fluid analysis was performed to investigate the mechanisms of flow in water treatment plants by utilizing the high processing capability of computers and general CFD (computational fluid dynamics) packages including sophisticated user interfaces. In the Japanese iron and steel industry, many water treatment plants have been in operation for several decades since construction of the steel mills, and need to be renewed. Fluid analysis including CFD and flow visualization is an excellent tool for evaluating aging equipment and for designing new plants. In this study, the FIDAP code was used to simulate water flow and the VOF method was adopted for accurate calculation on free-surfaces. Hydrodynamic modeling of water flow was evaluated in model experiments, and the PTV (particle tracking velocimetry) method was adopted to visualize real fluid motion. These methods were applied to evaluate the treatment efficiency of the large-sized cyclone separator, and the performances of the outside-inflow type and inside-inflow type were compared. The result indicates the inside-inflow type is more efficient than the outside-inflow type. In careful study, short-cut flow and rotating flow which inhibit ideal water treatment are reduced in the inside-inflow type. Following these results, the inside-inflow type was adopted at Kimitsu ironworks, and the area of the facility was reduced by 20%.

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