VISUALISATION AND ANALYSIS OF THE FLUID FLOW STRUCTURE INSIDE AN ELLIPTICAL STEELMAKING LADLE THROUGH IMAGE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES

The understanding of the fluid flow conditions during the liquid steel stirring treatment in the ladle is an important issue to optimize the steelmaking process. In this sense, in this article, a cold physical model in reduced scale of a gas-stirred ladle has been built and investigated through image processing techniques to evaluate its velocity field. The gas has been injected in 3 different positions of the ladle base and the resulted fluid flow has been analyzed by the Image Processing Velocimetry technique, using the PIV mode (Particle Image Velocimetry). Such analysis was qualitative and aimed at verifying and at understanding previously obtained results through dye tracer tests and mixing times. Whenever it has been possible, our results have been compared with other ones found in the literature.