Speaker
Description
The aim of the work is to get insight into the gas-metal-slag interactions in a bath smelting reactor, and in the settler of the flash smelting furnace (FSF). In both processes, it is important to find ways to enhance slag-metal reactions and separation by improving gas agitation and/or by finding ways to enhance droplet coalescence and, thus, settling and separation. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling towards a scaled down bottom blown copper smelting furnace (SKS furnace) with different tuyere arrangements have been conducted with the Multi-Fluid VOF model. Also, droplet settling through slag in the FSF settler was modelled with CFD-DEM (Discrete Element Method) coupling with a user-defined sub-model for including effects of coalescence and slag-matte reactions.
In the bottom blown copper smelting furnace (SKS furnace), tuyeres installed at each side of the furnace would help to strengthen the agitation. The distance between two line of tuyeres should be limited in a certain range to balance the requirement of better agitation efficiency and less impact on the refractory. It is also noticed that the impact on the side wall mainly comes from the surface wave. Based on the current work, modified SKS furnace structure with new tuyere arrangements can be constructed and simulated. The Multi-Fluid VOF model was found to have a good performance on the simulation of the macroscopic flow field in the submerged gas blowing system.
CFD-DEM gives ability to simulate individual droplets and their behaviour. Additional user-defined models increase accuracy of simulations and a new model can simulate constant changes of droplet properties, as slag and matte compositions would have some local variance in the slag layer. Also, due to high demand of computational resources, the CFD-DEM simulations had to be significantly scaled down and be more focused towards individual properties instead of simulating an industrial process.
| Speaker Country | Finland |
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