Heat and mass transfer within an electric arc furnace are strongly influenced by extreme temperatures and complex electromagnetic fields. Variations in temperature distribution play a crucial role in determining melt flow patterns and in the formation of stagnant regions, commonly referred to as dead zones. To better understand the internal flow dynamics and thermal behavior of the furnace, this study develops a multiphysics coupled model that integrates fluid heat transfer with Maxwell’s electromagnetic field equations. Numerical simulations are conducted to systematically examine how key operational parameters, such as electric current and arc characteristics, affect the heat transfer performance inside the furnace. The analysis reveals that arc length is the dominant factor governing both current density and heat distribution in the molten bath. Specifically, increasing the arc length from 200 mm to 400 mm results in a 16.1% rise in maximum current density within the titanium slag layer, from 7128 A/m² to 8270 A/m². However, a longer arc also introduces higher interfacial thermal resistance, which impedes heat transfer efficiency and leads to a significant drop in the peak temperature of the titanium slag, from 2618 K to 2125 K. These findings underscore the dual impact of arc length on both electrical and thermal behavior, highlighting the need for careful optimization.

A comprehensive understanding of thermal transport across solid-liquid interfaces is crucial for enhancing the performance of micro- and nanoscale devices, especially at the silica-water interface, which plays a key role in many applications in energy conversion and medical technologies. The adsorbed water layer at the silica interface plays a core role in solid-liquid interface thermal transport. However, the molecular-level structural transitions of this layer and their correlation with thermal transport mechanisms have not been extensively studied. In this work, molecular dynamics simulations were used to study the thermal transport mechanisms at silica-water interfaces with different hydroxyl densities, focusing on how interfacial H-bonds and layered structures influence interfacial thermal transport characteristics. The results of the study show that the interfacial thermal conductance increases with the hydroxyl density, while the density distribution of water molecules at the silica interface shows an opposite trend. The formation of H-bonds at the interface is identified as the main cause of this anomalous behavior. Through density, charge, H-bonds, and water molecule orientation distribution, the bilayer structure of the adsorbed water layer at the silica interface was defined at the molecular level, which is composed of the binding interface layer and the diffuse layer. The binding interface layer plays a decisive role in interfacial thermal transport. Through the analysis of interfacial potential energy, H-bonds dynamics, and Vibrational density of states, the microscopic mechanisms of thermal transport at silica-water interfaces with different hydroxyl densities were proposed by this work. These findings may provide new insights into the understanding of thermal transport mechanisms at solid-liquid interfaces.