Modelling of Furnace Tapping with Uniform and Non-Uniform Porosity Distribution

Abstract

Tapping flow rates depend on various in-furnace conditions such as the metal and the slag build-up in the furnace and the permeability of the particle bed formed by the unreacted coke. A framework to simulate the flow of the metal and the slag during tapping and production periods is presented in this research. The flow of the metal and the slag is simulated using a multiphase volume of fluid (VOF) approach. The effect of particle bed permeability is included by adding the Ergun equation to the momentum transport equation for both uniformly and non-uniformly distributed particle beds. In this research, the effect of permeability on the tapping flow rates of the metal and the slag are presented. Due to the presence of a single tap-hole, the metal tapped during the tapping process could either be the metal produced in the vicinity of the tap-hole or in other regions. It was seen that decreasing the uniformly distributed permeability decreased the flow rates of the metal and the slag at the tap-hole and consequently it took more taps to reach a steady state, whereas the flow rate of the metal is lower and that of the slag is higher for non-uniform distribution of permeability compared to the uniform distribution. The metal is equally tapped from all regions of the furnace at steady state for uniformly distributed particle bed, whereas more metal produced near the tap-hole is tapped compared to other regions for non-uniform particle bed distribution.

Keywords: computational fluid dynamics, multiphase flow, Porous media flow, Tapping