Engineering-Technological Directorate of Aluminium Production of LLC “RUSAL Engineering-Technological Center”, Krasnoyarsk, Russia:

V. V. Pingin, Director, e-mail: Vitaliy.Pingin@rusal.com

Ya. A. Tretyakov, Head of Department of Mathematical Modeling and Measurements

E. Yu. Radionov, Manager of Department of Mathematical Modeling and Measurements (New Technologies Department)

National Research Irkutsk State Technical University, Irkutsk, Russia:

N. V. Nemchinova, Head of a Chair of Non-Ferrous Metals Metallurgy, e-mail: ninavn@yandex.ru

Manager V. V. Platonov took the participation in this work (LLC “RUSAL Engineering-Technological Center”).

Many Russian aluminium industry plants are equipped with electrolysis baths S-8B (С-8Б) or S-8BM (С-8БМ) with self-baking anode. Authors carried out the analysis of bus arrangement design disadvantages for these types of baths, such as: – the lack of compensation of vertical component of magnetic electrolyzer field, which appears as a result of influence of bath working in the next range; – presence of anode riser sites in plane with aluminium melt, making influence on formation of uncompensated vertical and cross magnetic induction components, which leads to formation of shift and high rates of metal circulation; – uneven current distribution by anode bus arrangement and cathode rods; – considerable costs for complete electrolyzer overhaul due to demantling of anode risers and flexible steel bar packages, leading to decreasing of the sizes of anode riser bus-bars and decreasing of welded contact quality. There are considered various methods of design modernization for the bus arrangement of this type of electrolyzers. 170 kA current strength testings of modernized bus arrangement of Soderberg electrolyzer were carried out on the experimental field of Irkutsk aluminium plant. Increasing of current distribution on anode bus arrangement is also possible due to the use of additional darns between four anode bus-bar branches (both from the input, and from the output electrolyzer faces). Change of the section of cathode flexibles and their reswitching between cathode bus-bars may also improve the current distribution on steel cathode rods. Decreasing of complete electrolyzer overhaul costs allows the use of split-contact connections in anode risers and on the “steel bar – cathode bus-bar” site.

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