Electric and thermal simulation for short circuit busbar of aluminum reduction cells

Taking 114 kA aluminum reduction cells with baked anodes as research subject, the electric and thermal characteristic of cathode short circuit busbar was simulated by ANSYS computational platform under the thermo-electric balance condition. The coefficient of heat transfer of the cathode busbar was inferred by combining the measurement and the numerical simulation. The influence of the current, coefficient of heat transfer and environment temperature on the highest temperature and voltage drop of the cathode busbar was researched. The results show that the temperature and voltage drop obviously increase with the increase of electric intensity and the decrease of heat transfer coefficient. However, the influence of environment temperature is small. The results can be used in analyzing the melted and broken process for cathode busbar.