Regular Article

Investigation of water distribution features among pipes in BF hearth

¹ School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, PR China
² State Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallurgy, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, PR China
³ CSIRO Mineral Resources, Private bag 10, Clayton south, Victoria 3169, Australia

^* e-mail: jiaokexin_ustb@126.com

Received: 3 February 2018
Accepted: 30 May 2018

Abstract

The cooling system is important for the safety of blast furnace production. Measurements for over six months on a 1350 m³ blast furnace have shown that water volume distribution among the pipes in hearth is not uniform. The nature of the water volume distribution curve remains constant while furnace operation is normal, but is influenced by features of heat flux and hydrodynamic to the bustle pipe, which result in a 40–60% difference between maximum and minimum flow rates through individual pipe assemblies. A change in water volume is generally taken up by pipes that are working well. The water volume varies by 20–40% between pipes. That the problem about water non-uniform distribution of water-supplying system in cooling system is caused by the hydrodynamic pulsations existed between the parallel pipes and individual pipe. The cooling water temperature difference and water volume shows negative relationship. There may be some false positives of hearth erosion trends when the state of erosion is determined by water temperature difference for the non-uniform distribution of water volume. The inhomogeneity of the cooling intensity among the pipes merits attention.