Numerical Simulation of Burden and Gas Distributions Inside COREX Shaft Furnace

Abstract

Shaft furnace plays a very important role in the quantity and quality indexes of the COREX process. However, the simulation on the burden and gas distributions in COREX shaft furnace is still immature and hence needs further developed and improved. For instance, currently the geometric model is commonly used to simulate the COREX shaft furnace, but can only take into account one or two kinds of burden materials. To improve the simulation of the COREX shaft furnace, a three dimensional model of COREX shaft furnace is developed in this study. It applies the discrete element method (DEM) to a COREX‐3000 shaft furnace with the charging system whose size is the same as the actual one. The model simulates the charging process with four types of burdens together and then is used to investigate the effects of different distributor angles on the burden and gas distributions. Results show that the position of burden apex moves towards the wall and the height of burden profile decreases with the increase of distributor angle. Coke and flux roll away from the striking point, while ore segregates close to the striking point, and pellet always tends to move towards the central area. Coke and flux segregate more obviously in the wall area when the distributor angle is no larger than 10° while they segregate more in both the wall and the center areas when the angle is no smaller than 20°. The distributor angle is recommended to be no larger than 10° to control the central gas flow and be larger than 25° to prevent the peripheral gas from over developing.

Discrete Particle Simulation of Solid Flow in a Large-Scale Reduction Shaft Furnace with Center Gas Supply Device

“…In addition, the particle i bears two kinds of torque which are tangential torque T ij and rolling friction torque M ij . [30][31][32] All the forces and torques used in the model are listed in Table 1.…”

“…32) The mass ratios and densities of different burdens are obtained from the plant operation Table 1. Forces and torques acting on particle i.…”

Experimental Study of the Effects of Operation Conditions on Burden Distribution in the COREX Melter Gasifier

“…and shaft furnace including falling trajectory, [7][8][9][10][11][12] burden profile, [13][14][15] burden pile structure [16][17][18][19] and the descent of burden layer, 20,21) only a few studies were dedicated to the burden distribution in the MG to achieve reasonable gas flow, mainly due to the short history of the process and limited experimental techniques. [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] Several numerical studies on the COREX MG were conducted.…”

DEM Study of Solid Flow in COREX Shaft Furnace with Areal Gas Distribution Beams

“…The higher movability of coke particles can be confirmed in the previous studies on burden charging process where coke has a higher chance of segregating away from the striking point. [44][45][46][47] The particle segregation is further analysed quantitatively in Fig. 13, showing the relation between normalized mass fraction of each particle, M i /M i0 , and normalized radial distance r/R at different Levels in Case B. M i is mass fractions of each particle size in a given radial position and M i0 is initial mass fractions of each particle size.…”