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

The cohesive zone of the blast furnace generates major part of the pressure drop. It is considered that the thickness of the cohesive zone increases with decreasing the reducing agent rate and increasing the usage of the low grade raw materials in future. Thickening the cohesive zone increases the pressure drop and the failure of the blast furnace operation could occur in the extreme condition. Thus the thickness of the cohesive zone should be decreased or permeability of the cohesive zone should be improved. A mathematical simulation technique for the fluid flow and heat transfer in the packed bed of the deforming particles like the cohesive zone was developed. This technique combined the discrete element method for bed deformation and the computational fluid dynamics for the gas flow. Additionally the inter-particle heat exchange in the deforming packed bed was formulated and linked with the discrete element analysis. This mathematical model successfully revealed the variation of the heat transfer mechanism with the deformation of the packed bed. The simulation results could give the useful information for designing the burden distribution under the low carbon operation of the blast furnace.