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ISSN Online: 2379-1748

7th Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference (TFEC)
SJR: 0.152 SNIP: 0.14 CiteScore™:: 0.5

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Clarivate CPCI (Proceedings) Scopus
May, 15-18, 2022 , Las Vegas, NV, USA

NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF COMBUSTING FLOW IN A PELLETIZING PILOT FURNACE TO INVESTIGATE THE FLOW PATTERN BEFORE THE PELLET BED

Get access (open in a dialog) pages 1443-1450
DOI: 10.1615/TFEC2022.cbf-ii.040810

Abstract

The pilot furnaces are considered as an essential unit in all pelletizing industries to determine the cooking conditions at various pellets working conditions. This study investigates the flow pattern before the pellet bed in the pilot furnace of Gol-Gohar Industrial and Mining Company. It is to investigate the cause of pellet agglomeration in some areas of pellet bed. So, the numerical simulation of the three-dimensional reacting turbulent flow is carried out in the pilot furnace. The results show that the flue gas temperature reaches 1434 °C at the end of the combustion process. Also, the average mass temperature of combustion gases above the pellet bed reaches to about 1403 °C, which is suitable for the iron ore pelletizing process. By examining the velocity distribution at the top face of the pellet bed, it is found that the minimum and maximum velocity magnitudes show about 12 m/s differences. These differences at the pellet bed would consequently cause non-uniform heat transfer to the pellets in the pod and eventually result in pellet agglomeration at one side. The present numerical simulation results show that the non-uniform velocity distribution is due to the geometrical design of the T-junction branch, where the process flue gas separates from the down-comer duct. The flow separation at the edge of the T-junction causes a vortex pattern in the duct, which consequently produces high non-uniform velocities and subsequently, non-uniform heat transfer feed to pellets.