CFD Analysis – Blast Furnace Blowpipe Failure

Computational Fluid Dynamics Used to Study Various Blowpipe Designs

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis was used to investigate the cause of a blast furnace blowpipe breakout and study various new designs.

The investigation included quantifying the failure mode, evaluating the effects of using other designs and/or alternative materials of construction. Analysis included:

• The blowpipe, lance and tuyere
• Materials of construction, system design, operating data & alarm logs examination of the furnace
• Failed blowpipe & lance, and exemplar blowpipes and lances
• Three-dimensional finite element thermal transients

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was also used to model the hot blast flow in the blowpipe with the coal/nitrogen injection stream. Two cases were analyzed: normal operating flow, and upset conditions with the lance broken off at the inner refractory edge.

We perform CFD and thermal, stress, vibration and fatigue analysis on components including vessels, heat exchangers, piping and valves.