Dripping Zone of Blast Furnace

Liquid iron saturation in the dripping zone

Abstract

Blast Furnace iron making is one of the largest reactor in the world in which several phases of gas and liquids coexist simultaneously. The severe operating conditions of blast furnace made the engineers to use computational tools to discover the exact behavior of fluids inside the furnace. The lower part of blast furnace where coke particles are piled up while liquid iron and slag move downward and blast gas flows upward, is called dripping zone. This part of furnace could be classified as a countercurrent multiphase packed bed reactor. The main object of this project is to extend an up-to-date approach of Extended Discrete Particle Method (XDEM) by multi-phase flow capabilities for reactors specially trickle bed reactors. Rather than expanding the discrete element method by CFD approaches, a coupling with well-established CFD approaches i.e. OpenFoam is preferred due to both time and cost reductions. Another purpose of this project is to consider Interaction and counter-current contact between gas and two liquid phases, slag and iron, which have great effect on heat transfer process, chemical reactions and damage of tuyeres at the lower part of the furnace as well as on the smooth operation of the furnace as a whole.

People

• Partners: CRM Group, Belgium;
• Contact: Prof.-Dr.-Ing. B. Peters

Funding

	This research is supported by the University of Luxembourg.
	This research is in the framework of the project "DigitalTwin", supported by the programme: Investissement pour la competitivite et emploi - European Regional Development Fund (Grant agreement: 2016-01-002-06).

Publications