Experimental investigation on the effect of granulation moisture on the flame front propagation and pore structure in the high-temperature zone of the sinter bed

Abstract

The pore structure in the high-temperature zone plays a leading role in the permeability of the sinter bed. However, few studies on the bed structure in the high-temperature zone of sintering are due to the difficulty of sampling. Pilot-scale sinter pot tests were conducted to investigate the flame front propagation properties and pore evolution characteristics under different granulation moisture in this paper. Liquid nitrogen was injected to quench the sintering bed. We use X-ray computed tomography to reconstruct the high-temperature zone sinter structures. Results show that the higher porosity of green bed under higher granulation moisture results in faster flame front and more likely channels formation. The porosity of the high-temperature zone increases from 48.40% to 51.50% and 55.68% with moisture increasing from 5.30% to 6.35% and 6.91%. However, the mean length of pores decreases from 1.60 mm to 1.38 mm caused by inadequate coalesce under high moisture conditions.