Computational Fluid Dynamics of Processes in Iron Ore Grate-Kiln Plants

Abstract: Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approaches have been developed to study pollution reduction in the manufacturing phase and heat transfer in the packed beds of iron ore pellets. CFD is a versatile tool that can be applied to study numerous problems in fluid mechanics. In the present thesis it is used, verified and validated to reveal the fluid mechanics of a couple of processes taking place during the drying and sintering of iron ore pellets. This is interesting in itself and can facilitate the optimization of the production as to product quality of the pellets, reduced energy consumption and reduction of emissions such as NOx and CO2. The practical aim with the pollution reduction research project is to numerically study the use of Selective Non-Catalytic Reduction (SNCR) technologies in gratekiln pelletizing plants for NOx reduction which had, to the best knowledge of the author, never been used in this context before despite that it is commonly used in cement and waste incineration plants. The investigation is done in several stages: 1) Reveal if it is possible to use the technique with the two most commonly reagents, ammonia and urea. 2) Derive a chemistry model for cyanuric acid (CA) so that this reagent also can be scrutinized. 3) Compare the reagents urea and CA in the gratekiln pelletizing process. A CFD model was developed and numerical simulations were carried out solving the flow field. A model for spray injection into the grate was then included in the model enabling a study of the overall mixing between the injected reagent droplets and the NOx polluted air. The results show that the SNCR technique with urea and CA may reduce the amount of NOx in the grate-kiln process under certain conditions while ammonia fails under the conditions investigated. The work also lays grounds for continued development of the proposed chemistry model by the adding of reactions to the RAPRENOx-process for CA as reagent, facilitating an extension to ammonia and urea as reagents. The grate-kiln plant consists of a grate, a rotating kiln and an annular cooler. The pellets are loaded onto the grate to shape a bed with a mean height of about 0.2 m. The pellets in LKABs processes consist mainly of magnetite and different additives chosen to fit the demand from the customer. Throughout the grate a temperature gradient is formed in the bed. This gradient should be as even as possible throughout the grate to ensure an even quality of the pellets. Method to study this numerically is the second main task in this thesis. The aim is to find out how temperature distributions in the bed can be modeled and adjusted. Of special interest is how the incoming process gas, leakage, and the detailed composition of the pellet bed influence the heat transfer through the bed. To achieve the goals and create a trustful model for the heat transfer through the packed bed the model must be build up in steps. Heat transfer to a bed of iron ore pellets is therefore examined numerically on several scales and with three methods: a one-dimensional continuous model, a discrete three-dimensional model and traditional computational fluid dynamics. In a first study the convective heat transport in a relatively thin porous layer of monosized particles is set-up and computed with the one-dimensional continuous model and the discrete three-dimensional model. The size of the particles is only one order of magnitude smaller than the thickness of the layer. For the three-dimensional model the methodology applied is Voronoi discretization with minimization of dissipation rate of energy. The discrete model captures local effects, including low heat transfer in sections with low speed of the penetrating fluid and large velocity and temperature variations in a cross section of the bed. The discrete and continuous model compares well for low velocities for the studied uniform boundary conditions. When increasing the speed or for a thin porous layer however, the continuous model diverge from the discrete approach if a constant dispersion is used in the continuous approach. The influence is larger from an increase in pellet diameter to bed height ratio than from increased velocity. In a second study the discrete model is compared to simulations performed with CFD. If local values are of importance the discrete model should always be used but if mean predictions are sufficient the CFD model is an attractive alternative that is easy to couple to the physics up- and downstream the packed bed. The good agreement between the discrete and continuous model furthermore indicates that the discrete model may be used also for non-Stokian flow in the transitional region between laminar and turbulent flow, as turbulent effects show little influence of the overall heat transfer rates in the continuous model.