Authors:
Ernesto Urionabarrenetxea (CEIT-BRTA, Spain)
Alejo Avello (CEIT-BRTA, Spain)
José Manuel Martín (CEIT-BRTA, Spain)
Enrique Manuel Huerta (CEIT-BRTA, Spain)
Abstract:
Since gas atomized powders can exhibit significant variations depending on the scale of the atomization unit, powders produced in laboratory-scale units may differ noticeably from those obtained in industrial-scale units, even under seemingly identical atomization conditions. In this work, the initial experimental results obtained with a new industrial-scale atomization unit using the original gas and melt nozzles are firstly presented. It was observed that the resulting powders were coarse, the primary disintegration stage was far from optimal and premature solidifications were formed. In order to increase the productivity of the process, several melt nozzles were designed, simulated using CFD techniques and tested. The new designs enabled the production of powders with similar characteristics to those obtained with the laboratory-scale atomization unit. Numerical and experimental results are presented, analyzing the influence of key operational variables, including the preheating of the atomizing gas, on productivity and energy consumption.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59499/EP256767701
