Influence of bed conditions on gas flow in the COREX shaft furnace by DEM–CFD modelling

Abstract

The gas flow plays an indispensable part in the production process of direct reduction iron in the COREX shaft furnace. So as to assess the gas flow under different bed conditions which are including shapes of the bed, different particle diameters and particle motion speed, a three-dimensional model has been built. The behaviour of gas flow was investigated by a hybrid model of DEM–CFD coupling. The results show that the bed void differences which is caused by the packing way and particle diameter has an important influence on the gas flow and the shaped bed of ‘V’ is the better choice to provide the optimal gas flow in the packed bed. When the descend velocity is 1 or 2 m h⁻¹, it has little impact on the gas flow in the packed bed, and we can think that the bed is static.