Design and characteristic analysis of flame cutting nozzles for ultralarge-thickness steel ingots

The cutting thickness of the flame cutting nozzle mainly depends on the characteristics of the cutting oxygen jet, and in the process of designing and manufacturing a flame cutting nozzle with an ultralarge thickness, it is impossible to carry out multiple experiments to optimize the design due to the difficulty in testing, safety, manufacturing cost, environmental pollution, and other problems. In this paper, the Laval-type cutting oxygen orifice channel was first designed by theoretical calculation, the pressure, velocity, Mach number, and density distribution characteristics of the cutting oxygen jet were investigated by numerical simulation, and the reliability and adaptability of the numerical simulation results were verified by experiments. Then, the numerical simulation comparison and estimation method of jet characteristics with the general-purpose G301-7# nozzle was used to study the cutting oxygen orifice channel of the ultralarge thickness flame cutting nozzle. The results show that under the condition of a 19 mm throat diameter and 10 atm inlet pressure, it was estimated that the length of cutting oxygen flow from the design nozzle can reach 1800 mm and the cutting thickness can reach 2500 mm based on the density value; the length of cutting oxygen flow can reach 2000 mm and the cutting thickness can reach 3800 mm based on the velocity value; the length of cutting oxygen flow can reach 1600 mm according to the value of the oxygen quality fraction; and the cutting thickness can reach 2800 mm based on the oxygen mass fraction content. Finally, trial production of the nozzle design, verification of the cutting test, the nozzle with a cutting thickness of 2500 mm at an oxygen pressure of 7 atm, and the cutting quality were all good.