Numerical Simulation to Predict Critical Hotspot Temperature in Blast Furnace Blowpipe to Avoid Industrial Hazard

Blast furnaces are an integral part of steel plants, which produce pig iron from iron ore for subsequent processing into steel. The blowpipe is one of the essential components of a blast furnace, which transmits preheated air into the blast furnace through the tuyere. During the combustion process in the blast furnace, blowpipes deliver a hot blast of air at 1200 °C and 4 atm. pressure inside the blast furnace. There is a possibility of erosion of the blowpipe’s refractory lining, which may result in catastrophe and loss in operations. Due to the refractory’s erosion, the blowpipe surface’s temperature is altered abruptly. Online monitoring of the entire blowpipe surface is essential, which is impossible with thermography owing to the inaccessibility of the front portion of the blowpipe. So, real-time temperature monitoring of the blowpipe is needed to utilize suitable sensor arrangements considering the environmental constraints. Also, the entire blowpipe body cannot be supported by sensors. So, the Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) model of the blowpipe is generated via the Finite Volume Method. Multiple hotspots or critical hot zones are created and solved numerically. The accessible region temperature of the blowpipe is collected from the plant through thermography to validate the CHT model. After validating, multiple temperature profiles are generated considering different unfit blowpipe cases with erosions. It is proposed to use simulation data of the blowpipe for predicting the critical condition.