Numerical Simulation of a Coke Oven Using Decoupling Techniques

Abstract

Cokemaking is an important unit operation in an integrated steel plant as coke quality has a strong influence on blast furnace performance. A two-dimensional (2D) model coupling physico-chemical phenomena inside combustion and coking chambers of a coke oven has been presented. It was implemented using the computational fluid dynamics software Ansys Fluent and was solved by a serial decoupling approach to improve convergence and to reduce computational time. The model predictions for gas temperatures inside the combustion chamber and the effect of coal moisture content on evolution of coke bed temperatures are in reasonable agreement with published experimental data. The computational time required for the 2D model is six times lower than that for a corresponding three-dimensional model. This model is useful for model-based optimization of cokemaking and for designing coke ovens with reduced computational burden.