Model of Forming-Accretion on Blast Furnace Copper Stave and Industrial Application Original Research Article

Copper staves have been equipped on nearly all of BF (blast furnaces) with volume over than 1000 m3 in China since their introduction from abroad about more than 10 years ago. Because of short application and lack of experience, phenomena of thickened or naked of copper stave happen occasionally which influence production severely. So it is important to study the model of forming-accretion on BF copper stave and realize real-time monitoring of forming-accretion on different copper staves. Therefore, mathematic model of calculating accretion thickness by heat flow of BF is proposed, and the calculated results indicate that accretion thickness could be kept at a reasonable range of around 50 mm by controlling heat flux around 22.0 kW/m2. The monitoring program based on the model was applied to a certain BF in China successfully, and it is found that slip of BF near the inner wall is one of most important reasons that cause fluctuation of accretion thickness. During the period of scheduled maintenance of the certain BF, the thickness of accretion measured through the static pressure holes is in good accordance with the value calculated by the monitoring program, so the results calculated by the monitoring program can be used to guide industrial production.