From Henry Bessemer’s invention to comprehensive converter process optimization

The Bessemer process enabling to produce high-quality steels was implemented at steel mills of the Urals region more than 200 years ago. At the beginning of the 20th century, the process was modified by scientists from the Mining Institute and was then adopted by copper and nickel alloy producers. The converter process became one of the key processing stages with Russian copper and nickel smelters. This paper examines certain ways to improve the tuyere air flow in a horizontal converter. The authors came up with a generic equation for calculating specific blast air pressure and discuss the use of hydrothermal and aerodynamic techniques for tuyere purging. The blast air limit was determined for a horizontal converter that is characterized with massive melt ejections. The authors demonstrate that, in spite of all the process and design improvements, the modern converter process still has three major drawbacks. They include process cycling, the gas ductwork not being completely tight, unbalanced thermal and chemical status of the vessel leading to excessive thermal and chemical loads on the tuyere zone and incomplete slag formation in zones that are farther from the tuyeres. Research work is ongoing on a novel continuous converter design which involves the use of special-design unsubmerged tuyeres. Such tuyeres produce spatially oriented high-pressure blasts which enable consistent rotation of the molten matte in a tight cylindrical vessel.

Method for determining blast furnace tuyere zone blackness degree on pulverized coal fuel injection

Pulverized coal fuel (PCF) supply is one of the modern methods of improving the cast iron production technology in blast furnaces (BF). It has a significant effect on the heat exchange in the tuyere zone (TZ). The known method of radiant heat transfer calculation in TZ accounts only for the ash particle effect on the TZ blackness degree. The aim of this work is to develop a method for determining TZ blackness degree and to investigate the effect of different factors on this value. The work was based on the elements of the proven method of calculating heat exchange in boiler furnaces. Parametric sensitivity was investigated by alternately simulating an error in each of the input values and determining its effect on the sought value. By analysing the processes, the authors have derived dependences for obtaining the concentration of ash particles and triatomic gases and determined the degrees of TZ blackness by Bouguer’s law simultaneously taking into account the radiation of the burning coke and ash particles, and triatomic gases. It has been established that an increase in the PCF consumption from 0 to 250 kg/t of pig iron changes the TZ blackness degree from 0,067 to 0,243; and a 1 % increase in the pressure, concentration of triatomic gases, ray effective length, TZ temperature and ash particle size changes the TZ blackness by 0,714 %, 0,151 %, 0,72 %, –1,557 % and –0,176 %, respectively. The calculations have shown that the effects of coke particles, triatomic gases and ash particles on the sought value are approximately equal. In contrast, when the conventional method is applied, it results in an approximately 2-time underestimation of the values, while even for evaluation calculations, the maximum permissible error is 10–15 %. The developed method accounting for all factors has the maximum error of 5 %. It is important for designing tuyeres and TZ refrigerators.

Effect of Chlorine on Combustion Process of Pulverized Coal in Tuyere Zone

The relation between chlorine and combustion process of pulverized coal in tuyere zone is affected by the existence form of chorine in coal. The combustion process of pulverized coal in tuyere zone is restrained by chorine of coal when the existence form of chorine is chloride created by Cl- and metal cation. The combustion process of pulverized coal in tuyere zone is improved by chorine of coal if chorine existents with the form of combination of HCl and nitrogen functional groups of coal macromolecules. Under the combustion conditions of tuyere zone in blast furnace, the distribution ratio of chlorine in unburned pulverized coal and blast furnace gas is approximately 60% and 40%, respectively.