Resumo

REYNOLDS, Q.G.. Influence of the power supply on the behaviour of DC plasma arcs - a modelling study. J. S. Afr. Inst. Min. Metall. [online]. 2018, vol.118, n.6, pp.655-660. ISSN 2411-9717.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2411-9717/2018/v118n6a14.

Direct current (DC) arc furnaces account for a significant proportion of installed pyrometallurgical capacity worldwide. Their applications include steel recycling and smelting of various materials such as ferrochromium, ferronickel, ilmenite, and other alloys. The rectifier power supply for such units is a major capital cost item, and errors in the design can result in considerable limitations being placed on the operating window of the furnace. In the present paper, computational plasma arc models developed using open-source software tools are applied to gain insight into the nature of interactions between the DC rectifier's transient behaviour, passive circuit elements such as smoothing chokes, and the dynamics of the arc. The effect of parameters such as choke inductance and thyristor firing angle is examined and interpreted with regard to possibilities for optimization of the design and operation of DC furnace power supplies in the future.

Palavras-chave : DC arc furnace; power supply; arc dynamics; computational modelling.

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