A Methodology for Blast Furnase Hearth Wear Analysis

The wear of a blast furnace hearth and the hearth inner profile are highly dependent on the liquid iron flow pattern, refractory temperatures, and temperature distributions at the hot face (the interface between the liquid iron and refractory or the skull). A 3-D CFD hearth model has been developed for predict the hearth erosion and its inner profile. The detailed computation results show that the hot face temperature is location dependant. Based on these discoveries, a new methodology along with new algorithms is established to calculate the hearth erosion and its inner profile. The methodology is to estimate the hearth primary inner profile based on 1-D heat transfer, and to compute the hot face temperature using the 3-D CFD hearth model according to the 1-D pre-estimated and re-estimated profiles. After the hot face temperatures are converged, the hot face positions are refined by a new algorithm, which is based on the difference between the calculated and measured results. The finalized CFD prediction temperatures are in good agreement with the experimental results except at or near the corner and taphole regions. In this paper, the detailed methodology and the new algorithm are presented along with the examples of hearth erosion and inner profile predictions.