*Article* **Physical Simulation of Molten Steel Homogenization and Slag Entrapment in Argon Blown Ladle**

**Fu Yang, Yan Jin \*, Chengyi Zhu, Xiaosen Dong, Peng Lin, Changgui Cheng, Yang Li, Lin Sun, Jianhui Pan and Qiang Cai**

The State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, 947 Heping Avenue, Qingshan District, Wuhan 430081, China

**\*** Correspondence: jinyan@wust.edu.cn; Tel.: +86-156-9718-0966

Received: 20 May 2019; Accepted: 27 June 2019; Published: 24 July 2019

**Abstract:** Argon stirring is one of the most widely used metallurgical methods in the secondary refining process as it is economical and easy, and also an important refining method in clean steel production. Aiming at the issue of poor homogeneity of composition and temperature of a bottom argon blowing ladle molten steel in a Chinese steel mill, a 1:5 water model for 110 t ladle was established, and the mixing time and interface slag entrainment under the different conditions of injection modes, flow rates and top slag thicknesses were investigated. The flow dynamics of argon plume in steel ladle was also discussed. The results show that, as the bottom blowing argon flow rate increases, the mixing time of ladle decreases; the depth of slag entrapment increases with the argon flow rate and slag thickness; the area of slag eyes decreases with the decrease of the argon flow rate and increase of slag thickness. The optimum argon flow rate is between 36–42 m3/h, and the double porous plugs injection mode should be adopted at this time.

**Keywords:** secondary refining; water model; mixing time; slag entrapment
