Mathematical Model of the Solid Flow Behavior in a Real Dimension Blast Furnace

Sammanfattning: A mathematical model based on the continuum mechanic concept has been developed to describe the profile of solid particles in an industrial scale blast furnace. The focus is the in-furnace conditions and its characteristics such as the shape and size of the deadman. The Navier-Stokes differential equation for multi-phase multi-dimensional space has been used to describe the behavior of existing phases. The equation has been modified to make it possible to describe the dual nature of the solid phase in the system. This has been done by applying the concept of the solid surface stress to describe the intergranular surface interactions between particles. More specifically, this term is added as an extra term to the Navier-Stokes equation to describe the particle-particle interactions. This extra term in behave as a breaking force when the particles are sliding down in the furnace. During the descending movement in the furnace it is shown that the particles change their profile from a V-shape to a Wshape, due to the characteristics of the deadman. Moreover, the velocity magnitude is higher at the outer surface of the deadman for higher grid-slabs in this region than the near-wall cells. However, the situation changes as solid particles moving to even lower levels of the grid-slabs at the outer surface of the deadman in comparison to near-wall cells. It has also been shown that an increase in the magnitude of the effective pressure reduces the velocity magnitude of descending particles. Furthermore, since different phases co-exist in a blast furnace, the volume fraction plays an important role in the blast furnace. Therefore, the influence of three different packing densities (0.68, 0.71 and 0.74 respectively) on the profile of the flow through the upper part of the blast furnace from the throat to the tuyeres level has been studied. It is shown that an increase in the volume fraction of the solid phase lead to a decrease in the velocity magnitude. This decrease is due to an increase in the solid volume fraction, which will increase the resident time of the particles inside a blast furnace. In addition, it is shown that the velocity magnitude of the solid phase decreases from the throat to the belly of the furnace, for the studied conditions. However, after belly the velocity magnitude increases again.