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Modeling of Powder Production During Centrifugal Atomization

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Abstract

Centrifugal atomizer has been widely used to produce metal powders, slag granules through dry slag granulation process. In this process, liquid is poured at the center of the spinning disc, which disintegrates to form droplets, and becomes solid granules/powders on cooling. In this study, a numerical simulation has been carried out to estimate powder size considering phase change into the model, and the obtained results are validated with experimental measurements. Different mechanisms of powder production viz., direct powder formation, ligament to powder formation, and film to powder formation have been captured at various liquid flow rates and angular disc speed. The effect of composition of the model liquid slag and its properties like viscosity, density, surface tension, etc. has been studied using this mathematical model. Further, the effect of superheat on solidification was also considered. Finally, powder size distribution has been correlated with properties of the slag, superheat of the liquid, and process variables.

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Abbreviations

h T :

total film thickness (m)

h s :

solid film thickness (m)

d drop :

droplet diameter (m)

R :

radius of the disc (m)

Q :

mass flow rate (kg/s)

ω :

angular velocity of the disc (RPM)

t :

time (s)

Re :

Reynolds number (−)

We :

Weber number (−)

Oh :

Ohnesorge number (−)

T in :

melt pouring temperature (K)

T ∞ :

ambient temperature (K)

T disk :

disc temperature (K)

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the funding received from the Department of Science and Technology (file No. CRG/2018/000908), India. The authors are also thankful to the High Performance Computing Environment (HPCE) at the P.G.Senapathy centre for computing resources, Indian Institute of Technology Madras for facilitating the Virgo super cluster to carry out the simulations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Metallurgical and Material Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India

    Vishnu Teja Mantripragada, Krishanu Kumar & Sabita Sarkar

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India

    Pankaj Kumar

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  1. Vishnu Teja Mantripragada
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  4. Sabita Sarkar
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Correspondence to Sabita Sarkar.

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The contributing editor for this article was Sharif Jahanshahi.

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Mantripragada, V.T., Kumar, K., Kumar, P. et al. Modeling of Powder Production During Centrifugal Atomization. J. Sustain. Metall. 7, 620–629 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40831-021-00370-2

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