This paper presents the numerical simulation of the technology of gaseous fuel utilisation for iron ore sintering. The proposed methodology is to partially replace the solid fuel by steelworks gases. A multiphase mathematical model based on transport equations of momentum, energy and chemical species coupled with chemical reaction and phase transformations was proposed to analyse temperature distributions of the process. A base case of actual industrial operation of a large sintering machine was monitored with thermocouples inserted into the sinter bed to validate the model. The model was used to predict four cases of fuel gas utilisation: feeding from N01 to N15 wind boxes with blast furnace gas (BFG); natural gas (NG); coke oven gas (COG); and a 50-50 mixture of BFG and COG. The model predictions indicated that for all cases the sintering zone is enlarged and the solid fuel consumption could be decreased.
List of symbolsA surface area, m 2 m 23 C p heat capacity, J kg 21 K 21 d final solid agglomerated, m d initial initial micropellets charged, m d m solid component diameter, m d s solid phase mean diameter, m F s g interaction force on solid phase due to gas phase, N m 23 s 21 H enthalpy of the phase, kJ kg 21 P phase pressure, Pa Pr g~C p,g m g k g Prandtl number r m rates of chemical or phase transformations, kmol m 23 s R gas constant, J mol 21 K 21 Re g{s~r gŨ U g {Ũ U s m g d s particle Reynolds number S w source or sink terms for the w variables, (various) t time, s T temperature, KŨ U i phase velocity vector (i is the gas and solid), m s 21 x i spatial coordinates, m e i volume fractions, m 3 m 23 m phase effective viscosity, Pa s r i phase density (i is gas and solid), kg m 23 Q n mass fraction in equation (4) (calculated by the model), kg kg 21 w m solid diameter shape factor (m is the sinter feed, sinter return, limestone, fines, coke, mushy and bonding)
