Abstract
Recycling iron-bearing solid wastes generated during iron and steelmaking processes is crucial for optimizing resource utilization and mitigating carbon emissions. The Rotary Hearth Furnace (RHF) has emerged as a promising alternative for sponge iron production from solid waste. This study developed a 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of a pilot-scale RHF using the FLUENT solver to investigate use of hydrogen as a fuel. The results indicated that substituting hydrogen for hydrocarbon-based fuels led to a remarkable reduction in fuel and air consumption, resulting in increased profitability for direct reduced iron (DRI) production. Optimum conditions for post-combustion of CO, air, and fuel rate and their preheat temperature were identified to minimize fuel rate and emission, maximizing heat transfer to pellet bed, and maintaining a reducing atmosphere over pellet bed to restrict reoxidation of metalized pellet with hydrogen as heat-producing fuel.
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Abbreviations
- A, B :
-
Constant in the eddy-dissipation model
- C1 ε, C 2 ε , C 3 ε ,C μ :
-
Constants in standard k—ε model
- C p :
-
Specific heat at constant pressure
- D i ,m :
-
Diffusion coefficient for species i in the mixture
- E :
-
Total energy per unit mass
- E a :
-
Activation energy
- G k :
-
Production of turbulent kinetic energy by buoyancy
- G t :
-
Production of turbulent kinetic energy by velocity gradient
- g j :
-
Component of gravitational vector in the jth direction
- k:
-
Turbulent kinetic energy
- p:
-
Pressure
- Prt :
-
Turbulent Prandtl number
- R :
-
Universal gas constant
- r:
-
Distance of a point from the centre of the pellet
- S chem :
-
Source term of heat of chemical reaction
- S rad :
-
Source term for heat of radiation
- Sct :
-
Turbulent Schmidt number
- T :
-
Temperature
- t:
-
Time
- u i :
-
Velocity component
- Yi:
-
Mass fraction of species i
- β :
-
Coefficient of thermal expansion
- δ ij :
-
Kronecker delta
- ε :
-
Dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy per unit mass
- μ :
-
Molecular viscosity
- μ e ff :
-
Effective viscosity
- μ t :
-
Turbulent viscosity
- v i, r :
-
Stoichiometric coefficient for reactant i in reaction r
- \(v_{{{\text{i}},{\text{r}}}}^{\prime \prime }\) :
-
Stoichiometric coefficient for product i in reaction r
- p:
-
Density
- σ :
-
Stefan-Boltzmann constant
- σ k :
-
Turbulent Prandtl number for k in standard k—ε model
- σ ε :
-
Turbulent Prandtl number for ε in standard k—ε model
- R total :
-
Total thermal resistance
- q’’:
-
Total heat flux
- h r :
-
Heat transfer coefficient for radiation
- h c :
-
Heat transfer coefficient for convection
- d ref :
-
Thickness of refractory wall
- d shell :
-
Thickness of shell
- k ref :
-
Thermal conductivity of refractory
- k shell :
-
Thermal conductivity of shell
- k c :
-
Thermal conductivity of air
- T r :
-
Inside wall temperature of furnace
- T w :
-
Outside shell temperature
- T atm :
-
Ambient temperature
- Nu:
-
Nusselt number
- Ra:
-
Rayleigh number
- Pr:
-
Prandlt number
- Gr:
-
Grashof number
- L c :
-
Characteristic length
- ∆H r :
-
Net heat effects of reaction r
- q R :
-
Radiative heat transfer rate per unit area in the non-transparent gas
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Tank, S., Saleem, S. & Roy, G.G. Low Emission Sponge Iron Production in RHF: A CFD Study. Trans Indian Inst Met (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12666-023-03036-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12666-023-03036-7