Influence of Iron Ore Fines Feed Size on Microstructure, Productivity and Quality of Iron Ore Sinter

Abstract

The sinter structure and its characteristics mainly depend on the raw material chemistry, size, size distribution and the sintering process parameters. In sintering process heat is supplied by coke breeze in the sinter mix to raise the bed temperature to achieve partial fusion and diffusion bonding. Airflow rate and flame front speed in sintering process has been found to guide the performance of the sinter plant and these parameters mainly depends on the sinter bed permeability. The flame front speed (bed permeability) has been considered as one of the important operating parameter and it depends on several factors; the feed size of the sinter being one of the most important parameter among them. Since iron ore proportion is at higher side in the sinter mix, its size fraction is very important. JSW Steel sinter plant receives iron ore fines of –10 mm size from Bellary – Hospet region which consist of 3 to 9% bigger than 10 mm and 30 to 35% smaller than 0.15 mm size fraction. It is well known that larger particles favour diffusion bonding and smaller particles favour slag bonding in sintering process. Accordingly, the study of the assimilation characteristics of different size range iron ore has an important role to control the reactions in the sinter bed and to obtain the target mineral structure. Too much variation in coarser and finer particle size range in sinter mix, the behavior of these +10 mm and –0.15 mm particles have been a subject of investigation and it is necessary to understand the role of iron ore particle size on sinter microstructure, sinter strength, sinter RDI, and productivity. In present work pot grate sintering experiments have been carried out in laboratory with different level iron ore size (mean particle size from 1.22 to 3.95 mm) to understand the influence of iron ore mean particle size on mineralogy, productivity, physical and metallurgical properties of the sinter. Sinter productivity increased with increase in iron ore mean particle size due to increased flame front speed (FFS) and improved bed permeability with lower sintering time. Sinter with iron ore mean particle size of 2.59 mm (Classifier fines) yielded better sinter strength with lower fines (–5 mm) and lower RDI. Higher sinter strength is due to effective distribution of acicular silico ferrites of calcium and alumina (SFCA) phases. The improvement in sinter RDI is due to the change in proportion of magnetite and hematite phase with flame front speed.