EDEM Research Spotlight- Simulation of burden charging in a blast-furnace equipped with a bell-less top system using discrete element method
Altair Employee- RESEARCHER
- Bruno Pinheiro Da Silva
- INSTITUTE
- Universidade Federale Do Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
- DEPARTMENT
- Metallurgical and Materials Department
- SUPERVISOR
- Emerson Erikdal Da Cunha
- TIMELINE
- 2018-2019
This work uses EDEM to simulate raw material loading into a blast furnace equipped with a Bell Less Top (BLT) system. The simulations were based on a real operation of a steelmaking plant in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). The simulations allowed for the evaluation of the contribution of the physical properties of the raw materials fed into the furnace such as size distribution, shape and density, as well as the effect of the rotating chute of the BLT system on the loading of coke and the metallic burden, which is constituted of sinter, lump iron ore and pellet particles. A post-processing tool was developed that allowed a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the EDEM simulation outcomes in terms of particle size and component segregation at the top of the blast furnace. As such, the work establishes the foundations of a methodology that allows optimization of the rotating chute algorithm as a function of the burden properties. SPONSOR CAPES, FAPERJ 
Fig 1. Blast furnace equipped with a Bell Less Top (BLT) system
The new block factory feature in EDEM 2018 allowed for the use of previously ran simulations containing the full loaded hopper to be coupled with simulations of an existing bed of particles on top of the charge. Additionally, GPU support has allowed the full-scale blast-furnace loading simulations containing 4 million particles to be run in five days.
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