About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2026 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Aluminum Reduction Technology
|
| Presentation Title |
Numerical Investigation of the Decreasing Performance of the Cathode Assembly |
| Author(s) |
Omolbanin Saeidi, Daniel Marceau, Simon-Olivier Tremblay, Mohammed Rachik, Antoine Godefroy |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Simon-Olivier Tremblay |
| Abstract Scope |
Accounting for nearly 8% of the 4.2 V operating voltage in aluminum reduction cells, the electrical contact resistance (ECR) at the cast iron/carbon interface (CCI) is a primary contributor to the cathode voltage drop. ECR is influenced by temperature but also, by the contact pressure which highly depends on the initial air-gap formed at the CCI during cathode rodding. During start-up and operation, thermo-mechanical deformations in the cathode assembly’s components alter the CCI, reducing contact pressure which decrease ECR. This study combines experimental and numerical approaches to investigate the impact of this evolution. The initial air-gap distribution, determined using 3D scanning and previously published, and the thermo-mechanical behavior of the metallic components of the cathode assembly including creep mechanism, experimentally characterized, are integrated in a thermo-electro-mechanical (TEM) finite element model developed in ANSYS™ software to study the behavior of the cathode assembly during operation. Details of experimental characterization are not included in this paper. Results show that creep deformations account for approximately 19 % of the total cathode voltage drop as reported on operational reduction cells. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: Light Metals |
| Keywords |
Modeling and Simulation, Process Technology, Characterization |