Numerical analysis for the multi-phase flow of pulverized coal injection inside blast furnace tuyere

The pulverized coal injection (PCI) system was modified from single lance injection into double lance injection at No. 3 Blast Furnace of CSC. It is beneficial to reduce the cost of coke. However, the injected coal was found very close to the inner wall of the tuyere during the operation, such as to cause the possibility of erosion for the tuyere. In this study a three-dimensional mathematical model has been developed based on a computational fluid dynamics software PHOENICS to simulate the fluid flow phenomena inside blast furnace tuyere. The model was capable of handling steady-state, three-dimensional multi-phase flow of pulverized coal injection. The model was applied to simulate the flow patterns of the injection coal inside the tuyere with two kinds of lance design for the PCI system. The distribution of injection coal was simulated such as to estimate the possibility of erosion for the tuyere. The calculated results agreed with the operating experience of CSC plant and the optimum design of double lance was suggested. The model was also applied to simulate the oxygen concentration distribution with these different oxygen enrichments for the coal/oxygen lance system. The calculated results agreed with the experimental measurement. These test results demonstrate that the model is both reasonably reliable and efficient.