Estimating metal mass flowrate in gas-atomization for metal powder production

The gas-to-metal ratio (GMR) is considered an important parameter in the gas-atomization process for producing metal powders. Consequently, correlations for estimating the mass median particle size (d(50)) of powders use GMR as the main parameter. In an industrial setup, it is not easy to measure the melt flowrate to ascertain the GMR. Hence, in this study, we develop a theoretical approach to estimate the melt flowrate and measure it in a pilot setup. Both our theoretical and computational fluid dynamics approaches are in good agreement with the measurements. We then conduct a parametric study to elaborate the effect of certain parameters on the melt flowrate. We believe that the theoretical approach presented here will help to quickly estimate the powder size (d(50)) expected from a gas-atomization system. This will help to correctly choose geometric and operating parameters to reduce the spread in powder size distribution in an actual application.