Granular flow to a blast iron ore furnace

Abstract

The infeed ofThe material in a blast furnace isThe composed of a mixtureThe of three different materials: sinter, iron ore pellets and coke. They are each very different in shape, size and mechanical properties and likely this promotes segregation, an unwanted effect. However up till now it is not clear to what extent the Particle Size Distribution (PSD) of each of the three components affects the homogeneity. This work aims to assess the influence of particle size distributions of the individual components on the homogeneity of the infeed material by Discrete Element Model (DEM) Simulations. It can be concluded that modelling the PSD of the individual components is not required to model the tendency to segregate of the mixture of iron ore pellets, sinter and coke. Representing each of the materials by its mean particle size d50 reduces the number of particles and simulation time drastically without compromising the simulation results of the used material models.