Study of Preferential Refractory Wear in the Jet Impingement Region of a Blast Furnace Trough (BFT): A Mathematical, Physical, and Industrial Study

Part 1: Literature Review

Aim: To investigate the past works concerning BFT, understand the various metallurgical process, and identify the lacuna present.

Publication: S Ranjan, D Mazumdar, I N Chakraborty, S Sinha, and R Sarkar, "Review and Analysis of Metallurgical Processes in Blast Furnace Main Trough and Trough Performances", Transactions of Indian Institute of Metals. [https://doi.org/10.1007/s12666-021-02454-9 ]

Status: Completed

Part 2: Hydrodynamic Modeling

Aim:

  1. To fabricate a BFT water model of a suitable length with an appropriate scaling factor to study the impact zone flow.

  2. To suggest a suitable CFD modeling approach to accurately predict the wall shear stresses.

    • Validation of mean velocity and turbulence parameters using LDV.

    • Validation of wall shear stress using Electrochemical method.

  3. To predict the wall shear stress in an industrial BFT using the above modeling approach.

  4. A three-phase (hot metal - slag - air) modeling of a BFT from an Indian steel plant to predict the wall shear profile and compare it with the actual wear profile.

Publication/ Presentation: S Ranjan and D Mazumdar, "Modelling of Metallurgical Processes in a Blast Furnace Trough", Asia Steel 2021 Hybrid, Gyeongju, South Korea.

Status: Ongoing

Part 3: Miscellaneous Issues

Aim:

  1. Thermal modeling of the BFT walls to determine the location of the critical isotherm

    • 1D vs 2D

    • Effect of thermal contact resistance

    • Effect of different cooling practices: Natural vs Forced vs Insulating

    • Normal vs worn-out trough

    • Addition of radiative heat transfer

  2. Refractory wear in the upper region in the BFT (at the air - refractory interface)

  3. Influence of air entrainment on the wall shear stress in the impact zone

    • Single-phase vs two-phase with taphole vs two-phase without taphole

Status: Ongoing

Part 4: Development of predictive model for the BFT Wear Rate

Aim:

  1. Prediction of wear rate using hydrodynamic model and Sherwood number correlation

    • Development of Sherwood number correlation for a vertical plate submerged in a two-phase gas-liquid turbulent flow

    • Application of the developed correlation in conjunction with the hydrodynamic model developed in the Part 2 to predict the wear rate

  2. To develop a correlation to predict BFT refractory wear using operating parameters.

Publication/ Presentation: S Ranjan and D Mazumdar, "A Macroscopic Model for Prediction of Refractory Wear in Blast Furnace Main Trough" AISTech 2022, Pittsburgh, USA.

Status: Ongoing