EFFECT OF RAW MATERIAL ON BLAST FURNACE PERFORMANCE: THE USE OF AN EXPERIMENTAL BLAST FURNACE

摘要

LKAB's experimental blast furnace in Lulea was built and commissioned in late 1997, primarily for product development of iron ore pellets. During 1998 and 1999 five campaigns were conducted to evaluate different types of iron ore pellets. This paper describes the experimental blast furnace, the methodology used for tests and the results from the test campaigns. The experimental blast furnace, with a daily production of 30-40 t/day, is designed to give a realistic reductant rate. It is equipped with systems for PCI, oil injection, injection of slag formers and state of the art control/monitoring system including three burden probes. About twenty different iron ore pellet composition have been tested in the campaigns, both as a 100 percent pellet burden and in combination with sinter. During operation, sampling of burden materials from different levels has been done. At the end of each campaign the blast furnace has been quenched and dissected. The results show that small changes in the composition of iron ore pellets sometimes have a big impact on process results in terms of process stability and amount of reductants consumed. The experimental blast furnace has proven to be a very efficient tool for product development and has generated a lot of knowledge about the blast furnace process.