Analysis of Air Flow Momentum on Concentrate Dispersion and Combustion in Copper Flash Smelting.pdfVIP

Influence Analysis of Air Flow Momentum on Concentrate Dispersion and Combustion in Copper Flash Smelting Furnace by CFD Simulation JUN ZHOU,1,3 JIEMING ZHOU,1,2 ZHUO CHEN,2,4 and YONGNING MAO2 1.—School of Metallurgy and Environment, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan Provi- nce, People’s Republic of China. 2.—School of Energy Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan Province, People’s Republic of China. 3.—Jinguan Copper, Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Co. Ltd., Tongling, Anhui Province, People’s Republic of China. 4.—e-mail: chenzhuo@csu.edu.cn The Outokumpu flash smelting process is a very successful technology for copper extraction from sulfide concentrate. Numerical simulation has been used for several decades in the analysis and evaluation of the smelting pro- cess. However, significant delay in the particle ignition was found in compu- tations of flash furnaces that had great expansion in their productivity. A study was thereafter carried out to investigate how the gaseous flows influ- ence the particle dispersion and combustion. A momentum ratio was defined to describe the effective portion of the pressure forces caused by the lateral and the vertical gaseous flows. Simulations were carried out with Fluent 6.3 (Fluent Inc. The software package is now known as Ansys Fluent of Ansys Inc.) for cases with different momentum ratios as well as of the same momentum value. A detailed analysis and discussion of influences of the gaseous momentum on the particle dispersion are presented. The result re- veals that a large momentum ratio combined with large amount of distribution air is helpful for good particle dispersions and thus quicker combustions. Also the process air is found to perform a constraint influence on the particle dis- persions, particularly for those of medium and small sizes. INTRODUCTION The Outokumpu flash smelting process is widely accepted as an efficient technology for copper sulfide concentrate smelting. Many