Predictive FEM simulation of thermal shock damage in the refractory lining of steelmaking installations

Thermal shock damage in the refractory lining of steelmaking installations is modelled using an experimentally validated constitutive damage framework which is coupled incrementally with a thermo-elastic FE package. Both non-local elasticity-based damage induced by temperature gradients and thermal damage induced by a uniform temperature increase contribute to the total damage. The non-locality is spatially discretized using a Galerkin approach within a finite element context. The thermal shock damage in a snorkel of a steel degassing installation as well as in the refractory lining of a steel ladle is modelled to demonstrate the applicability of the computational platform.