8th International Congress on Science and Technology of Ironmaking - ICSTI 2018

Blast furnace cohesive zone has a profound impact on the hot metal productivity and quality, fuel consumption, operation stability and lining life of the blast furnace. The high temperature properties of ferrous burden materials determine the configuration and location of the cohesive zone, and have therefore attracted increased attention. While numerous standard testing methods are in use to assess the quality of ferrous burden materials for the blast furnace use, these simple tests are generally conducted at fixed conditions, which often represent the extreme situations encountered by the burden materials in the blast furnace. Furthermore none of these simple tests provides information on the high temperature properties of the burden materials, such as the softening and melting properties. CSIRO is equipped with a fully computerised testing facility to characterise the high temperature properties of the ferrous burden materials under the realistic conditions similar to those encountered in the blast furnace. This paper will first review the test methods developed worldwide for evaluating the high temperature characteristics of blast furnace ferrous burdens and then discuss the softening and melting properties of a variety of blast furnace burden materials including sinter, pellets and lumps, and their implications for blast furnace operation.