A new concept of auxiliary fuel injection through tuyeres in blast furnaces developed by numerical simulations

The Injection of powdered materials in blast furnaces is a great option for reducing costs, increasing productivity and satisfy the environmental norms. Thus, this paper presents a study on the use of a flame stabilization system with rotation, designed to promote greater coal injection in the combustion zone, reducing losses and increasing the efficiency of the equipment. A physical model was used to evaluate scattering of pulverized fuel and is compared with numerical results in the same scale. In the second step, a combustion model was added to the numerical simulation, using dimensions of a real blast furnace. Fields like temperature, velocity and behavior of chemical reactions were analyzed. The results showed that double lances promote better particle injection when compared with simple lance for reduced material injection. The new injection system proposed, with swirl numbers of 0.12 and 0.24, promoted a better injection of both reduced material and temperature in the raceway zone. The swirl 0.24 showed superior performance when compared to other injection systems. (C) 2014 Brazilian Metallurgical, Materials and Mining Association. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda.