ASSESSING THE CRACK SENSITIVITY OF HOT GA S DUCT ELBOW SECTIONS ON ELECTRIC-ARC FURNACES

The analysis of a hot gas duct elbow section with the aid of the Finit e Element Method (FEM) revealed that precisely those tubes in which cr acking had also been observed in reality exhibited the greatest strain s. A three-dimensional shell structure was used as a computer model fo r this purpose, with the thermal boundary conditions being derived fro m an independent simulation. Comparisons with a two-dimensional model normally applied in bibliographic sources showed that with the three-d imensional model higher strain levels and hence greater sensitivity to cracking are determined with the three-dimensional model. The applied methods and models thus make a review of such elements' design parame ters during the design phase appear very promising.