Modeling on impact zone volume generated by coherent supersonic jet and conventional supersonic jet

The supersonic oxygen supply technology, including the coherent supersonic jet and the conventional supersonic jet, is now widely adopted in electric arc furnace steelmaking process to increase the bath stirring, reaction rates and energy efficiency. However, there has been limited study on the impact characteristics of the coherent supersonic jet and the conventional supersonic jet. Thus, integrating theoretical models and numerical simulations, an optimized theoretical model was developed to calculate the volume of the impact zone generated by coherent and conventional supersonic jets. The optimized theoretical model was validated by water model experiments. The results show that the jet impact zone volume with coherent supersonic jet is much larger than that with conventional supersonic jet at the same lance height. The k_d value, a newly defined variable that is the product of the dimensionless quantity of velocity and free distance, reflects the velocity attenuation and the potential core length of the main supersonic jet, which is a key parameter of the optimized theoretical model. The optimized theoretical model can well predict the jet impact zone volumes of coherent and conventional supersonic jets with the error no more than 3.62 and 9.37%, respectively.