A model to simulate titanium behavior in the iron blast furnace hearth

The erosion of hearth refractory is a major limitation to the campaign life of a blast furnace. Titanium from titania addition in the burden or tuyere injection can react with carbon and nitrogen in molten pig iron to form titanium carbonitride, giving the so-called titanium-rich scaffold or buildup on the hearth surface, to protect the hearth from subsequent erosion. In the current article, a mathematical model based on computational fluid dynamics is proposed to simulate the behavior of solid particles in the liquid iron. The model considers the fluid/solid particle flow through a packed bed, conjugated heat transfer, species transport, and thermodynamic of key chemical reactions. A region of high solid concentration is predicted at the hearth bottom surface. Regions of solid formation and dissolution can be identified, which depend on the local temperature and chemical equilibrium. The sensitivity to the key model parameters for the solid phase is analyzed. The model provides an insight into the fundamental mechanism of solid particle formation, and it may form a basic model for subsequent development to study the formation of titanium scaffold in the blast furnace hearth.