Numerical investigation of cooling strategy for reducing blast furnace hearth erosions

Hearth wearing is the key limit of a blast furnace campaign life. Hot metal flow pattern and temperature distributions are the two key variables to determine the rate and style of the hearth wearing. There are several strategies to control and reduce the hearth erosion, such as changing cooling water temperature and changing the heat transfer coefficient. In this paper, both cooling strategies are investigated using a comprehensive *computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, which was developed specifically for the simulation of blast furnace hearth. That program can predict the liquid flow patterns and temperature distributions of the hot metal as well as temperature profiles in the hearth refractory materials under different conditions. The results predicted by the CFD code were compared with actual industrial operation data. The cooling strategies are evaluated based on the energy analysis and effect on the hearth erosion.