Modelling of steel scrap movement

Uneven movement of steel scrap during electric arc furnace melting causes operational problems, such as cave-ins. To understand the phenomenon, a small-scale apparatus has been built to simulate the flow of scrap that may be interlocked. It was found that flow starts at the point where the suspended length of the pile bottom reaches the average scrap size. The force balance in a suspended scrap pile has been analyzed to estimate the effective cohesion of interlocking. A numerical model has been developed to simulate the scrap flow.