Scrap melting in continuous process rotary melting furnace Part 1 – Bench scale furnace trials

Abstract

A heat transfer model was developed for scrap melting in an oxyfuel fired continuous process rotary melting furnace (CPRMF), which was envisioned as a replacement for the electric arc furnace in minimill steelmaking. The results are presented in a two part series. This first paper describes the bench scale CPRMF, the experimental procedure, and the operational results which will be used to validate the model. Two groups of copper melting trials were performed to explore aspects of furnace operation such as oxygen enrichment and slag thickness. The experimental results indicated that furnace thermal efficiency was significantly improved by moving from 37 to 80% oxygen in the combustion air and, extrapolating the results, would be ∼30% for oxy fuel firing. With the constant oxygen level of 53%, the introduction of a slag layer significantly lowered the efficiency from 22 to 18% for 1·3 cm slag and 12% for 2·5 cm slag.