Equipping blast furnaces with bell-less top (BLT) chargers is intended for reducing the consumption of costly and scarce coke, as well as increasing the productivity of blast furnaces. However, equipping a furnace with BLT charger does not always lead to achieving these goals. In a number of cases, the result is opposite. This made a number of researchers doubt the feasibility of further installation of bellless top charging equipment on blast furnaces. The experience of operating the bell-less top charger showed that a simple replacement of a double-bell charger with bell-less top one does not produce an improvement in blast-furnace process parameters, such as a decrease of coke consumption and increase in productivity. A bell-less top charger is just a management tool that can be used to achieve this goal. But like with all other tools, it is important to learn how to use it. For this purpose, it is important to provide a blast furnace with the evaluation and control means to manage the distribution of the charge materials along the furnace throat radius and utilization of thermal and chemical energy of the gas flow. The distribution of the charge materials along the furnace throat radius is associated with the variation in ore charge (ore-to-coke (O/C) ratio). Different values of the O/C ratios along the furnace throat radius play an important role in the formation of a gas flow inside the blast furnace. A mathematical model is proposed to be used as a tool for estimating the optimal distribution of the ore charge along the furnace radius based on the zonal balances of the blast-furnace process. Such model was used to analyze the study results related to the effect of the O/C ratio variation along the furnace throat radius on a decrease in coke consumption and increase in productivity of the blast furnaces operating in Japan and Russia. A satisfactory agreement between the calculated and actual results allows recommending such mathematical model for preliminary calculation of the optimal distribution of ore charge along the radius of the blast furnace. This makes it possible to calculate the bell-less top charging systems, as well as identify the furnace zones with unsatisfactory utilization of thermal and reduction energy of the gas flow.
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Translated from Metallurg, Vol. 63, No. 10, pp. 28–33, October, 2019.
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Rogozhnikov, S.P., Rogozhnikov, I.S. Mathematical Model for Estimating the Optimal Distribution of Ore Charge Along the Blast Furnace Radius Based on Zonal Balances. Metallurgist 63, 1024–1032 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11015-020-00921-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11015-020-00921-0