Numerical simulation of steel-copper-steel composite cooling staves: Heat transfer characteristics and structural optimization

Abstract

The heat transmission properties of the cooling stave were examined using a numerical simulation approach and compared with copper cooling stave and copper steel composite cooling stave under different furnace conditions and different structures. It is found that the existence of the steel layer greatly raises the maximum temperature of the cooling stave when no slag is present, and its hot surface temperature is 152 °C greater than that of the copper cooling stave. However, under typical operating conditions, the hot surface temperature of the steel layer is still below its limit working temperature of 470 °C. The temperature of the cooling stave rises with the temperature of the gas and the temperature of the inlet water and reduces with increasing water inlet velocity and slag thickness. To efficiently lower the temperature of the hot surface steel layer, the operation should ensure that the hot surface gas temperature is kept within 1300 °C, the cooling water speed is raised to 2.4 m/s, and the slag thickness should be set to 15 mm or higher. The optimal construction for a steel-copper-steel composite cooling stave is to keep the thickness of the steel layer at 11.9 mm and the thermal conductivity around 40 W/(m·K).