Stable blast furnace operation requires proper drainage of liquid from the hearth. The estimation of drainage rate and hearth liquid level are of utmost importance for understanding the underlying hearth phenomena. The present review gives an insight of the need for measurement of the hearth liquid level and further throws light on various methods of estimation of hearth liquid level in-depth, which is primarily divided into 2 categories namely; model-based estimation and sensor-based estimation. Although the model-based estimation and sensor-based estimation have their own advantages and disadvantages, an integrated system comprising of both methods could potentially facilitate operators to reveal the state of hearth, which is unless not available with the implementation of a single method of estimation. Furthermore, the challenges in the estimation and the prospects for determining the reliable hearth liquid level measurement in blast furnace are discussed. The article is presented to give prospect of encountering the drift occurring in estimation of liquid level, which leads to inaccurate prediction and simulation with the industrial blast furnace. Lastly, the article gives recommendation for improving the liquid level estimation methods in blast furnace.
The pulverized coal injection (PCI) is pursued to reduce the hot metal production cost by replacing the expensive metallurgical coke with the non-coking coal. Increasing the PCI rate causes various difficulties in the blast furnace (BF) operation. In the present work, an attempt is made to review the various aspects of PC injection in BF such as the challenges with increasing the PCI rate and modifications in the injection system to circumvent the concerns related to higher PCI rate. Various methods for detecting the tuyere blockage and failure caused due to the high PCI rate are elaborated. The factors influencing the combustion of coal in front of tuyeres have been discussed and their impact in the replacement ratio has been discussed. Further, recommendations are made to improve the coal combustibility in front of tuyeres.
The stability of the blast furnace (BF) process depends on the quality of raw materials charged into the BF. Apart from various process variables, slag viscosity and slag fluidity are key parameters that require due attention for the stable BF operation. The varying Al 2 O 3 content in slag increases the viscosity of slag and thus hinders the separation of slag from hot metal during the casting process. This leads to the deterioration of hot metal quality because of the entrapment of slag during the slag-metal interfacial reaction. In this work, an attempt is made to utilize the high alumina content raw materials and to reduce the Al 2 O 3 content in the final slag. The high alumina content in slag increases the liquidus temperature and viscosity of slag and causes an adverse effect on BF operations. To countermeasure the effect of alumina, slag volume is increased and basicity along with MgO was increased. It has been demonstrated that MgO addition as a flux is effective for compensating the effect of a high alumina burden. By increasing the MgO in slag, fluidity was maintained to ensure easy separation of slag from hot metal.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.