The ironmaking blast furnace (BF) is a complex reaction vessel involving counter-, coand/ or cross-current flows of gas, powder, liquid, and solids. However, the interactions of these multiphase flows have not been completely understood. The objective of this thesis is to develop a suitable model to simulate the powder flow and accumulation in packed beds and then extend it to numerically investigate the multiphase flow in the furnace. Gas-powder flow in a slot type packed bed has been experimentally studied in order to understand the flow and accumulation behaviour of powder in systems like an ironmaking blast furnace. A variety of variables including gas flowrate, powder flowrate and packing properties have been taken into consideration. It is found that a clear and stable accumulation region can form in the low gas-powder velocity zone at the bottom of the bed. The accumulation region is stable and shows strong hysteresis. The distribution of softening-melting layers in the blast furnace known as the cohesive zone (CZ) is modelled by inserting solid blocks into the bed. The results indicate that the inverse-V cohesive zone shape leads to low powder accumulation within the CZ and at the corner of the bed. A mathematical model is proposed to describe gas-powder flow in a bed packed with particles. The model is the same as the two fluid model developed on the basis of the space-averaged theorem in terms of the governing equations but extended to consider the interactions between gas, powder and packed particles, as well as the static and dynamic holdups of powder. In particular, a method is proposed to determine the boundary between dynamic and stagnant zones with respect to powder phase, i.e. the profile of the powder accumulation zone. The validity of numerical modelling is examined by comparing the predicted and measured distributions of powder flow and accumulation under various flow conditions. With high PCI rate operations, a large quantity of unburned coal/char fines flow together with the gas into the blast furnace. Under some operating conditions, the holdup of fines results in deterioration of furnace permeability and lower production efficiency. Therefore, the proposed model is applied to simulate the powder (unburnt coal/char) flow and accumulation inside the blast furnace when operating with different cohesive zone (CZ) shapes. The results indicate that powder is likely to accumulate at the lower part of W-shaped CZs and the upper part of V- and inverse V-shaped CZs. In addition, for the same CZ shape, a thick cohesive layer can lead to a large pressure drop while the resistance of narrow cohesive layers to gas-powder flow is found to be relatively small. Gas-powder flow in moving beds of solid particles has been numerically investigated, under conditions related to the ironmaking blast furnace and high rate pulverized coal injection. A new correlation, which is formulated to describe static powder holdup in a moving packed bed, is incorporated into the previous mathematical model and applied to a description of gas-powder flow in a blast furnace. Compared with the results of fixed beds, the results show that the solids descent due to the consumption of ore, coke and unburnt char in various regions, together with the non-uniform structural distribution, significantly affects powder flow and accumulation in a blast furnace. Finally, liquid flow is simulated through force balance approach and numerical results are compared with the different liquid inlet distribution under the iron-making blast furnace conditions with gas flow. The results show that the effect of inlet distribution on liquid flow is significant in the upper part of coke region in BF and possible loading and dry zone can be numerically identified. Then, this part of work is incorporated to the developed gas-powder-solid modelling system to investigate the influence of liquid phase on other phases flow in the blast furnace although heat transfer and chemistry are not considered in the model.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/187942 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Dong, Xuefeng, Materials Science & Engineering, Faculty of Science, UNSW |
| Publisher | Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Materials Science and Engineering |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Xuefeng Dong, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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