A STUDY ON PATTERN AND DISTRIBUTION OF GAS FLOW IN RACEWAY AND LOWER PART OF BLAST FURNACE

Smelting of iron in a normal-working blast furnace may be considered as a pseudo-stable process of momentum, heat and mass transfer between the countercurrent gas and burden flow. Therefore analysis and investigation of gas flow distribution based on equation of continuity and equation of motion is the foundation for further study on heat and mass transfer.The authors study the gas flow patterns of the raceway in cold model. From this studied some important boundary conditions, which affect gas flow distribution in blast furnace, were derived. It has been found that there is a central injection beam of confined-injection type surrounded by circulating currents in the raceway. Some stream-line patterns were derived by finite differential method of Laplace equation and vector form of Ergun equation with electronic computer. Therefore, the stream distribution in the vertical section of the lower part of the furnace and factors affecting the distribution were investigated. Calculated results show that the flow distribution in the lower part of the blast furnace is intimately related with the flow pattern of the raceway and they are helpful for analyzing and controlling the blast furnace process.