Modelling of a Pilot Scale Iron Ore Pellet Induration Furnace

Abstract

In this work, a mathematical model of the pilot scale iron ore pellet induration furnace is presented. The validity of the model has been verified by performing separate experiments of subprocesses: drying, firing and cooling. The experiments were performed in such a way that the phenomena of heat transfer, drying and coke combustion could be studied separately. To do this, the green pellets were first dried, then heated to elevated temperatures at which the coke combustion commences and the pellet strength begins to increase. Finally, the pellets were cooled by passing ambient air across the bed.The pellet induration model is based on the equations describing the phenomena of heat and mass transfer, gas flow, drying and combustion of coke. The experiments and the pellet induration cycle were simulated by solving the differential equations. The pellet bed was divided into differential height elements and the phenomenological equations were solved by numerical methods. This type of model is very useful in many applications such as designing of new plants, evaluating the effectiveness of different process parameters and training the operators and engineers. In addition, it can also serve as a module for on-line control of the moving grate furnace operations. ) pellet or gas humidity (kg m-3 pellet or gas) axial distance or bed height within the pot-grate (m).

Analysis of dangerous emissions and plant productivity during sintering ore operations

“…In order to obtain a strong optimisation and control of the industrial operations in ore sintering plants, different models were proposed and are available in the literature; many of those models refer to experiments performed on a laboratory scale. [31][32][33][34][35][36] In the present study, a model belonging to a multiobjective optimisation analysis has been carried out using data from an industrial plant. The recorded compositional values of the employed coals (wt-%) is shown in Table 1.…”

XDEM study of burden distribution in iron ore pellet firing

“…The review of literature on the present reactor scale models for the prediction of induration furnace performance reveals three important facts which are [9,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21]: (i) majority of these models are one-dimensional, (ii) models are based on topochemical reaction kinetics, (iii) models are concerned with induration of hematite pellets. However, recent studies have shown that the validity of these models is only limited to the diffusion control regime [22].…”

Establishing a Novel Methodology to Correlate the Macroscopic and Microscopic Degree of Sintering in Magnetite Pellets during Induration

“…Most of these properties, including the cold crushing strength, high‐temperature strength, reducibility, and extent of reaction are primarily the result of the sintering degree (bonding), phase content and distribution, porosity, and the pore size distribution in the pellets . Digitization of microstructural images enables the quantification of many of these features and further correlates the pellet properties empirically with the aid of reactor scale and statistical models . Models and software packages have been developed to determine features such as phase quantification and pore size distribution from microstructures, whereas none have been developed to determine the sintering degree.…”