Transient Simulation of Bath Temperature inside Aluminum Reduction Cells

Abstract

Bath temperature stability is a very important parameter with which to evaluate pot thermal balance. In this paper, a transient thermo-electric finite element model of reduction cell is established to simulate the fluctuation curve of bath temperature under different alumina feeding rates and different energy inputs. The model results show that short-term fluctuation of the temperature curve is influenced by different alumina feeding rate under underfeeding and overfeeding, but the long-term fluctuation depends on whether energy input matches average feeding rate. If the difference between energy input and heat consumed by alumina reaches the latter’s 10%, the temperature changes about 1.8 °C after four cycles. Based on model results, the paper analyzes the relationship among alumina feeding rate, bath temperature fluctuation and heat balance. The matching of heat input and heat consumed by alumina is of crucial importance to maintaining bath temperature stability.