The Operation Of Contemporary Blast Furnaces

This book focuses on how to keep blast furnaces running stably and smoothly with low consumption and long operating life spans. Assessing and adjusting blast furnace performance are key to operation. The book describes in detail cases of both successful and failed blast furnace operation. It also demonstrates various phenomena and “symptoms” in the smelting process that have rarely been studied before, e.g. abnormal gas distribution, bending loss of tuyere, slag crust fall-off, blast furnace thickening, and hearth accumulation. As such, it will help readers understand internal phenomena in blast furnaces, providing a basis for developing intelligent control and management systems.

This book describes the blast furnace process for operators. As a starting point, the blast furnace is seen as a simple iron ore melter, while gradually the physical, chemical and metallurgical background is clarified. Operational observations, challenges and remedies are explained from this perspective. Optimization of the blast furnace process is not only based on “best practice transfer”, but also requires conceptual understanding of what works when. In other words: operational improvement is not only based on know–how, but on know–why as well. With Modern Blast Furnace Ironmaking – An Introduction (Third Edition, 2015) the reader has a compact compendium of the blast furnace process available: by operators and for operators and for those who are preparing to become operators.

Blast Furnace Ironmaking: Analysis, Control, and Optimization uses a fundamental first principles approach to prepare a blast furnace mass and energy balance in ExcelTM. Robust descriptions of the main equipment and systems, process technologies, and best practices used in a modern blast furnace plant are detailed. Optimization tools are provided to help the reader find the best blast furnace fuel mix and related costs, maximize output, or evaluate other operational strategies using the ExcelTM model that the reader will develop. The first principles blast furnace ExcelTM model allows for more comprehensive process assessments than the 'rules of thumb' currently used by the industry. This book is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate science and engineering students in the fields of chemical, mechanical, metallurgical and materials engineering. Additionally, steel company engineers, process technologists, and management will find this book useful with its fundamental approach, best practices description, and perspective on the future. Provides sample problems, answers and assignments for each chapter Explores how to optimize the blast furnace operation while maintaining required temperatures and gas flowrates Describes all major blast furnace equipment and best practices Features blast furnace operating data from five continents

Modern Blast Furnace Ironmaking – An Introduction (Fourth Edition, 2020) describes the principles of the blast furnace process. As a starting point, the blast furnace is seen as a simple iron ore melter, while gradually the physical, chemical and metallurgical background of the blast furnace process is clarified. The book focuses on the control of the process with respect to thermal control, gas flow control and casthouse operation. In this book, all essential process details are described and a special focus is on cost optimization by low coke rates and on management of the process in case of disturbances and upsets. The optimization of the blast furnace is not only based on “best practice transfer”, but also requires conceptual understanding why a measure works in some cases and not in other cases. In other words, operational improvement is not only based on know–how, but as well on know–why. This publication can be used as an introductory text for students of metallurgy as well as for blast furnace operators and management.

The Iron Blast Furnace: Theory and Practice presents theoretical, experimental, and operational evidence about the iron blast furnace as well as a mathematical description of its operation. This book includes a set of equations that accurately describe stoichiometric and enthalpy balances for the process and which are consistent with observed temperatures and compositions in the furnace stack. These equations, which have been devised on the basis of the Rist approach, show the effects of altering any blast-furnace variable on the other operating requirements of the process. This monograph is comprised of 14 chapters and begins with a brief description of the blast-furnace process. The next chapter takes a look inside the furnace, paying particular attention to its behavior in front of the tuyères and the kinetics of the coke gasification reaction. The reader is then introduced to the thermodynamics and stoichiometry of the blast-furnace process; enthalpy balance for the bottom segment of the furnace; the effects of tuyères injectants on blast-furnace operations; and blast-furnace optimization by linear programming. A number of important variables covered by the equations are discussed, including hydrocarbon injection at the tuyères, oxygen enrichment of the blast, moisture, limestone decomposition, coke reactivity, and metalloid reduction. The effects of many of these variables are illustrated numerically in the text while others are demonstrated in sets of problems that follow each chapter. This text will be a valuable resource for metallurgists and materials scientists.