Experimental study and numerical simulation of dust accumulation in bustle pipe of COREX shaft furnace with areal gas distribution beams

Abstract

The following study investigated the dust accumulation in the bustle pipe of the shaft furnace with Areal Gas Distribution (AGD) through physical and numerical simulations. Although the experimental and numerical results were obtained from different-sized furnaces, the results had a similar tendency, where an initial dust deposition zone formed in the packed bed located in front of slots 8–12. The growth velocity of the deposition zone became larger than the descending velocity. It then spread upwards, to plug the slots, until the dust accumulation was formed. The gas velocity in the bustle pipe decreased after passing the AGD beam due to nearly 60% gas that went into the furnace through the AGD inlet. This was the primary cause for the dust accumulation in slots 8–12. Both the physical and the numerical results showed that when the blast volume increased, it effectively reduced the dust flux in each slot and decreased the clogging effect.