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J ournal of Materials Science and Engineering A 3 (7) (2013) 510-518

Numerical and Physical Modeling of Turbulence in a


Peirce-Smith Copper Converter
Aarn Almaraz
1
, Csar Lpez
1
, Miguel Angel Barron Meza
2
and Gabriel Plascencia
1

1. Technological Research and Innovation Center, IPN, Cerrada CECATI s/n, Col. Sta. Catarina, Mexico, D.F. 02250, Mexico
2. Materials Department, Azcapotzalco Metropolitan Autonomous University, Av. San Pablo 180, Azcapotzalco, D.F., 02200 Mexico

Received: April 25, 2013 / Accepted: May 20, 2013 / Published: July 10, 2013.

Abstract: In this work, a numerical and experimental analysis of the very early stages of biphasic flow and the onset of turbulence in
Peirce-Smith copper converters with submerged lateral air injection is presented. Dimensions and operating conditions corresponding
to industrial size copper converters are employed in 2D transient two-phase numerical simulations. A submergence depth for tuyeres
of 0.5 m and 1.0 m of molten bath depth were assumed in the numerical simulations. Air velocities at the nozzle inlet were varied
from 5 to 50 m/s, and integration times up to 10 s were considered. A transition from bubbling to jetting regime is observed as
injection velocity is increased. Computer results show that the metallostatic pressure exerted by the molten copper pushes the
injecting jet towards the nearest converter wall. Results from a set of independent tests conducted in a water model validate the
numerical data obtained.

Key words: Computational fluid dynamics, Peirce-Smith converter, turbulence, bubbling to jetting transition, Kutateladze number.

1. Introduction


Blister copper is used for manufacturing high purity
copper. Today, nearly 80% of the worlds blister
copper is obtained by means of Peirce-Smith
converters (PSC). These converters are cylindrical
vessels in which air is injected into a copper matte
through submerged tuyeres [1]. However, in spite of
the advent of alternative technologies for copper
converting, the Peirce-Smith converter still is the most
commonly reactor used worldwide to refine copper.
This reactor is fed by continuous smelting furnaces,
but given its operation, the PSC is regarded as a bottle
neck stage in the overall copper refining operation [2].
In addition to its simplicity, this furnace has not
experienced significant technological improvements
over a century of operation, which opens the door for
upgrading the operation of the PSC. One key issue to
address is the gas injection system, which may impact

Corresponding author:

Miguel Angel Barron Meza, Dr.,
research fields: process modeling, process control and
metallurgical processes. E-mail: bmma@correo.azc.uam.mx.
the productivity of this reactor while impacting on
fugitive emissions. This necessity can be overcome
with the use of computational tools and physical
modelling of the reactor.
Copper converting is defined by the submerged
injection of air (enriched with up to 35% O
2
) into a
molten matte (mixture of copper and iron sulphides);
as more air is injected into the matte, the iron and
sulphur in it are selectively removed by oxidation.
Optimization of Peirce-Smith converters using
thermodynamic modeling is described and discussed
in Refs. [3, 4].
Fluid flow in PSC is turbulent in nature given that a
high momentum transfer is required to get high
chemical reaction rates and localized heat transfer [5].
Many works have been reported regarding fluid flow
in PSC. Early works [6, 7] deal with physical
experiments which pretended to elucidate the bubbling
to jetting flow regimes and the effects of high pressure
injection in copper converters. In Ref. [8], it is
analyzed the influence of bath depth and tuyere
DAVID PUBLISHING
D
Numerical and Physical Modeling of Turbulence in a Peirce-Smith Copper Converter

511
submergence on the formation of standing waves in
PSC by means of water modeling. In the last few
years, with the advent of fast computers with huge
memory capacity, numerical simulations through
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software have
been carried out to study the fluid mechanics within
PSC. In this context, in Ref. [9] it is solved the
isothermal flow field in a PSC, and their numerical
results were corroborated with 1:4 scale water model.
They reported that relatively large bubbles increase
the turbulence in the molten metal. Recently,
in Refs. [10, 11], it is analyzed the fluid dynamics in a
Teniente copper converter by means of physical and
CFD modeling. They identified the bubbling and
jetting flow regimes by means of the dimensionless
Froude number and reported the natural oscillation
frequency of the bath surface as a function of the bath
depth and tuyere submergence.
Practically in all of the aforementioned reports,
fluid flow analysis is carried out once the turbulent
flow is fully developed, and the initial stages of
bubble formation and onset of turbulence have been
despised. In this work the initial bubble formation and
onset of turbulence is numerically studied for an
industrial-like PSC with a fixed bath depth varying the
injection velocity from 5 to 50 m/s. Commercial CFD
software was employed to solve the transient 2D
Navier-Stokes equations. The Reynolds Stress Model
and the Volume of Fluid Model were used in order to
model the turbulent nature of the flow and to deal with
the multiphase flow.
To ensure the effectiveness of the numerical
simulation conducted in this report, some physical
modelling of gas injection into a liquid was conducted
independently of the calculations.
2. Mathematical Model
Fluid flow is described by Navier-Stokes (NS)
equations, which in vector form are expressed as
follows [12]:
( )
( )

i
j
j
i
eff
j i j
j i
i
x
u
x
u
x x
p
x
u u
t
u

(1)
where r is the fluid density, u
i
is the i
th
component of
the fluid velocity u, t is time, x
j
is j
th
spatial coordinate,
p is pressure, and m
eff
is the effective fluid viscosity.
To maintain the mass balance in the system, the
continuity equation must be solved, i.e.:
0 =

j
j
x
u
(2)
In current industrial copper converter practice,
turbulence is needed to increase copper mate mixing,
thus mass, momentum and heat transfer are also
increased. In order to model turbulence properly, the
Reynolds stress model (RSM) was employed.
Currently, it is well recognized that RSM simulate
turbulence in a better way that two-equations models
such as the k-e. RSM is derived from the NS equations
and the Reynolds stress tensor [13]:
( ) ( )
' ' ' '
' ' ' '
' '

i j k i j
j
i
i k j k
k k k
i j
ij ijk
ij
k k
uu u u u
u
u
u u u u
t x x x
u u
C
x x






+ =

+


(3)
where

=
i
j
j
i
ij
x
u
x
u
p
'
'
' (4)
is the pressure-strain term. In Eq. (3) the term e
ij
is the
dissipation tensor:
k
j
k
i
ij
x
u
x
u

=
'
'
2 (5)
and the termrC
ijk
is the turbulent diffusion:
ik j jk i k j i ijk
u p u p u u u C
' ' ' ' ' ' '
+ + = (6)
On the other hand, an additional model is needed to
tackle the multiphase flow in the copper converter.
The volume of fluid (VOF) formulation relies on the
assumption that two or more phases are not
interpenetrating. For each additional phase (q) its
volume fraction a
q
is introduced as a variable. In each
control volume, the volume fraction of all phases
sums up to unity. The tracking of the interface
between the phases is accomplished by solving the
Numerical and Physical Modeling of Turbulence in a Peirce-Smith Copper Converter

512
continuity equation for each phase [14]:
q q
q
q
S
v
t

+ =

(7)
where, S
aq
is a source term for the q phase. Finally,
the pressure implicit splitting operation (PISO)
algorithm was employed in the transient simulations
for the pressure-velocity coupling given that it
maintains stability despite the larger time steps [14].
3. Bubbling to Jetting Transition
Bubbling to jetting transition in submerged
injection has been widely studied. In Refs. [6, 15], it is
affirmed that this transition primarily depends on a
balance between the inertial forces of the gas flow
through the hole and the gravity forces of the liquid
surroundings the orifice. Besides, these authors
suggest that the transition can be characterized by the
dimensionless Froude number. In a study related to
sieve trays in chemical engineering, In Ref. [16], it is
reported that the bubbling to jetting transition is better
represented by the Kutateladze number (Ku). This
dimensionless group includes the basic forces that
determine bubbling to jetting transition, namely gas
inertial forces, bubble buoyancy forces, liquid gravity
forces and surface tension forces. Kutateladze number
is defined as follows:
( ) ( )
25 . 0
g l
g
g
U
Ku

= (8)
where U is the gas velocity at the nozzle (m/s), r
g
is
the gas density (kg/m
3
), r
l
is the liquid density (kg/m
3
),
s is the liquid-gas surface tension (N/m) and g is the
gravity constant (9.81 m/s
2
).
In Ref. [17], it is examined bi-phasic flow under
different gas flow regimes. They recognized that upon
gas velocity injected into a liquid phase, different flow
patterns developed as a result of how the different
forces acting on the systems under study balance.
Furthermore, they identified a critical value of Ku =
3.1 as a criterion for the transition from bubbling to
jetting.
For jet velocities assumed in this work, namely 5,
25 and 50 m/s, and a tuyere diameter of 0.05 m, and
the physical properties of the copper matte listed in
Table 1, the resultant Ku number for our copper
converting simulations are shown in Table 2. It is
evident that blowing air into a matte at a velocity
below 50 m/s will result in bubbling. Such regime
may provide enough reaction sites for the refining of
copper, and even splashing and slopping of the melt
will not occur which is desirable during converting
practice [15]. In Ref. [18], after reviewing data from
different smelters, a simple relationship to estimate the
operation limit of industrial converters is developed.
Such relationship is:
4
Bath
Q W = (9)
where, Q is the normal volumetric flow rate of gas
(Nm
3
/min) and W
bath
is the mass of the melt (metric
tons).
Froude and Kutateladze numbers criterion can be
used to estimate the transition from bubbling to jetting
regimes during injection.
4. Numerical Results and Discussion
A sketch of the industrial-like copper converter
with horizontal injection employed in the computer
simulations is depicted in Fig. 1. Submergence depth
of the tuyere was fixed at 0.5 m, and an initial bath
depth of 1.0 m was considered. Velocity injection of
the air jet was varied from 5 to 50 m/s in order to
detect the bubbling to jetting transition flow regime. A

Table 1 Physical properties of the copper matte (Valencia
et al., 2006).
Property Value
Density 5,200 kg/m
Viscosity 0.004 Pa s
Surface tension 1.2 N/m

Table 2 Kutateladze number for the considered jet
velocities.
J et velocity (m/s) Kutateladze number
5.0 0. 35
25.0 1.74
50.0 3.48
Numerical and Physical Modeling of Turbulence in a Peirce-Smith Copper Converter

513

Fig. 1 Average dimensions of a copper converter.

maximum of 10 s of integration time was considered
in the computer experiments given that the interest
was focused in the initial bubble formation and the
onset of turbulence in the converter. In the 2D
transient numerical simulations two phases were taken
into account, namely copper mate and air. A time step
of 0.0001 s was chosen given that this value was
enough to keep the numerical convergence and
stability.
Fig. 2 shows the results during the first second of
elapsed time for a jet velocity of 5.0 m/s. The
formation, growing and detachment of the air bubble
can be clearly seen in the sequence of images. At
approximately 0.5 s the bubble splits into two small
bubbles as it ascend through the metal bath. At 0.8 s
the bubble begins its detachment and at 1.0 s a new
bubble is formed and rises. In this way, numerical
simulations show that for a jet velocity of 5.0 m/s
bubbling is the dominant flow regime, which
corresponds to a Kutateladze number of 0.35.
The initial fluid flow and onset of turbulence in the
vicinity of the injection orifice corresponding to Fig. 2
can be seen in Fig. 3. Initially, the molten copper is at
rest, however once air injection is activated, a bubble
is formed and molten copper is pushed away from the
orifice. As time proceeds, more momentum is
transferred from the jet to the bath and recirculation of
the liquid within the vessel begins.
This recirculation flow increases and eventually two
loops are created at the left and right sides of the
ascending bubbles stream.
Phase distribution in the copper converter for a jet
velocity of 25.0 m/s is shown in Fig. 4 for several
times. The mechanism is identical than that for a jet
velocity of 5 m/s, namely bubble formation, growth
and detachment. However, bubbling dynamics is
faster than that for the lower velocity. At 0.6 s, Fig. 4f
shows that the bubble is almost detached and it
contains inside a small drop of molten copper. The
bubbling regime persists for this jet velocity of 25 m/s,
and Kutateladze number of 1.74 in accordance with
Table 2.
Initial fluid flow and onset of turbulence
corresponding to Fig. 4 in the neighborhood of the
injection orifice is depicted in Fig. 5. Recirculation of
air is appreciated inside the bubble from the beginning
of the injection. As time proceeds, momentum is
transferred to the copper matte and recirculation flow
is induced in the melt. The air jet is pushed towards
the nearest wall by the gravity forces of copper, and
for the time considered no flow loop is observed at the
left side of the injection orifice.
Fig. 6 shows the phase distribution in the copper
converter for a jet velocity of 50 m/s, with a
Kutateladze number of 3.48. Figs. 6a to 6b show the


Fig. 2 Phase distribution in the copper converter for a jet
velocity of 5.0 m/s. (a) 0.1 s, (b) 0.3 s, (c) 0.5 s, (d) 0.7 s, (e)
0.8 s and (f) 1.0 s. Red is copper matte, blue is air.
Numerical and Physical Modeling of Turbulence in a Peirce-Smith Copper Converter

514


Fig. 3 Flow paths in the vicinity of the injection orifice for a jet velocity of 5.0 m/s. (a) 0.1 s, (b) 0.3 s, (c) 0.5 s, (d) 0.7 s, (e)
0.8 s and (f) 1.0 s.


Fig. 4 Phase distribution in the copper converter for a jet
velocity of 25 m/s. (a) 0.1 s, (b) 0.2 s, (c) 0.3 s, (d) 0.4 s, (e)
0.5 s and (f) 0.6 s.
formation, growth and ascending of an air bubble.
However, Figs. 6e and 6f show that an open jet regime
is occurring which prevents the formation of new
bubbles; this observation is in good agreement with
the value of Ku obtained for these conditions, since
the Ku of 3.48 is larger than 3.1, an open jet regime is
expected, thus hindering the formation of new bubbles.
More integration times are needed in order to confirm
is this regime is permanent, but at least in the time
period considered a jetting regime is observed.
Finally, the flow paths and transmission of
turbulence of both phases inside of the copper
converter for a jet velocity of 50 m/s are depicted in
Fig. 7. Initially air flows almost linearly towards the
converter exit, but as time proceeds it is deviated to
Numerical and Physical Modeling of Turbulence in a Peirce-Smith Copper Converter

515


Fig. 5 Flow paths in the vicinity of the injection point for several times. Jet velocity of 25 m/s. (a) 0.1 s, (b) 0.2 s, (c) 0.3 s, (d)
0.4 s, (e) 0.5 s and (f) 0.6 s.


Fig. 6 Phase distribution in the copper converter for a jet
velocity of 50 m/s. (a) 0.05 s, (b) 0.15 , (c) 0.30 s, (d) 0.5 s, (e)
0.75s and (f) 1.0 s.

Fig. 7 Flow paths in the copper converter for a jet velocity
of 50 m/s. (a) 0.05 s, (b) 0.15 , (c) 0.30 s, (d) 0.5 s, (e) 0.75 s
and (f) 1.0 s.
Numerical and Physical Modeling of Turbulence in a Peirce-Smith Copper Converter

516
the opposite side of the injection orifice causing a
considerable recirculation zone within the bath. Of
course, this flow pattern is not desired since it
decreases the rate of chemical reactions and heat
transfer, and renders the oxygen consumption in the
converter. A transition from bubbling to jetting regime
is observed for a jet velocity between 25 and 50 m/s
for a bath depth of 0.5 m.
To corroborate these observations from the
numerical simulations, some independent tests were
conducted in a scaled copper converter water
model. Experimental details have been already
published [19, 20].
It is evident from the images in Figs. 8a to 8c that
as air is injected at higher velocity, the morphology of
the bubbles changes. For the slowest velocity (Fig. 8a),
a set of well defined bubbles is present as the gas is
injected trough the water. Small perturbations in the
surface of the liquid are observed. When the gas
velocity doubles from 5 to 10 m/s (Fig. 8b), still some
defined bubbles are present; however, it is also
evident the coalescence of some bubbles and the
bursting of some others. The surface of the liquid
shows more motion as bubbles arrive faster at such
site. For gas injection at 50 m/s, it is evident that no
longer it is possible to identify single bubbles, a
column of gas can be observed, dragging along some
smaller bubbles resulting from the coalescence and
breaking of earlier bubbles. Bursting of the gas in the
liquid surface is even more evident and splashing
takes part more abruptly than with the slower
velocities tested.
In another set of tests with the velocity of 25 m/s, a
colour tracer was injected into the model along with
the gas. Fig. 9 shows images of the gas injection from
the lateral and frontal views with respect of the
injection point at different times. The images show the
development of a recirculation zone at the centre of
the vessel. This recirculation zone occupies nearly one
third of the total volume available in the water model.
From the pictures shown in Figure 9, it can be seen
from the front of the injection point that the tracer
moves upstream along with the gas reaching the water
surface, once at the surface, the tracer moves towards
the model lateral walls. From the lateral vie is evident
that the tracer moves towards the opposite side of the
injection point until the middle of the model; at such
point, a perfectly defined front is developed due to


Fig. 8 Bubble morphology in the water model for gas
velocities equivalent to (a) 5 m/s, (b) 25 m/s and (c) 50 m/s.

Numerical and Physical Modeling of Turbulence in a Peirce-Smith Copper Converter

517


Fig. 9 Formation of the recirculation zone at the centre of the water model used: (a) 1.2 s; (b) 4.0 s and (c) 7.0 s.

waving of the water, forcing the tracer to go to the
bottom of the vessel so it can eventually get to the
wall opposite to that of the injection.
It is clear from the observations in Figs. 8 and 9 that
our numerical results reproduce in very good
agreement the actual fluid flow in an actual converter.
Furthermore, the information gathered by our
numerical model can be used in assessing the
performance of a Peirce-Smith copper converter in
order to optimize its yielding.
5. Conclusions
The initial fluid flow and the onset of turbulence in
a copper converter were numerically studied in this
work for three different injection velocities. It was
observed and verified that the mechanism of bubbling
consists of formation, growing and detachment. For
velocities of 5 and 25 m/s and bath depth of 0.5 m, a
bubbling regime was detected. For gas injection of 50
m/s a jetting regime was prevalent. An apparent
laminar flow is seen initially, but as time proceeds a
Numerical and Physical Modeling of Turbulence in a Peirce-Smith Copper Converter

518
turbulent flow is induced in the vicinity of the
injection orifice and transmitted to the bulk of the bath,
causing a large recirculation zone. These observations
were corroborated with independent tests conducted in
a water model. Additional computer experiments are
required in order to fully analyze the influence of the
bath depth on the flow regime.
Acknowledgments
Funding for this project through SIP 20090503 and
SIP 20100152 grants is truly appreciated.
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