Simulation of Thermal, Electric and Chemical Behaviour of an Aluminum Cell on a Digital Computer

Abstract

Part one of the paper presents a method for calculating the temperature and electric potential in the cathode of a reduction cell. The time-independent temperature and potential fields are described by two coupled quasi-linear partial differential equations of elliptic type in two dimensions with appropriate boundary conditions. Box-integration is used for constructing the difference equations. Because of the temperature dependent coefficients a special strategy of inner-outer iterations is used for solving the system of equations. Part two of the paper presents a model for the energy and mass balance of a complete reduction cell. The model takes into account energy production and consumption in all parts of the cell. The dynamic solution requires the integration of 16 coupled nonlinear first-order differential equations. A stationary solution of the energy balance is found by solving a set of 15 non-linear algebraic equations. The model has been tested against measurements from a real cell, and good results have been obtained.