Regular Article

Performance simulation and optimization of COREX shaft furnace with central gas distribution

Laboratory of Multiphase Transport and Reaction Engineering, Department of Ferrous Metallurgy, School of Metallurgy, Northeastern University, P. O. Box 312, Northeastern University, 3-11 Wenhua Road, Heping District, 110819 Shenyang, Liaoning Province, PR China

^* e-mail: zouzs@mail.neu.edu.cn

Received: 13 March 2018
Accepted: 22 May 2018

Abstract

To improve the distribution of the reducing gas inside the shaft furnace, recently, a central gas distribution (CGD) device is installed at the bottom of the shaft furnace in Bayi Steel. In this work, a two-dimensional steady-state mathematical model, including momentum, heat and mass transfers and chemical reaction, is developed to study the performance of the furnace with CGD. The model is validated by industrial production data of COREX-3000, and then it is used to study the detailed phenomena in the furnace with CGD. The results show that, compared with the traditional COREX shaft furnace without CGD, the CGD device has a positive effect on improving the solid metallization rate (MR) and gas utilization rate (UR). The solid metallization rate (MR) increases from 0.601 to 0.628, the gas utilization rate (UR) increases from 0.3437 to 0.3519 and the standard deviation (STDEV) of solid MR decreases from 0.0820 to 0.0037, which means that the MR of the DRI from the furnace with CGD is more uniform than that without CGD. In addition, the effects of operation conditions and the CGD design on the solid MR, gas UR and STDEV of MR are discussed and the optimized conditions are suggested.