Numerical Study on the Relationship Between the Localized Depression Erosion of a Commercial Blast Furnace Hearth Lining and the Heat Flux of Cooling Staves

The service life of a blast furnace hearth is considered as a key factor limiting the service life of a blast furnace. The erosion of the hearth lining is generally inhomogeneous, and localized depression erosion often occurs. Since the conditions inside the blast furnace hearth cannot be directly measured, it is a common practice to use the existing thermal parameters to estimate the erosion, which can provide a basis for the safe production of the blast furnace. In this context, based on the anatomical data of the No. 2 commercial blast furnace, the three-dimensional erosion model is established, and the feasibility of the computational model is verified. Then, 15 computational models with localized depression erosion at different locations are established. The finite element method is used to simulate the heat flux of the cooling staves of each model. The results show that under normal cooling and heat transfer conditions, the remaining thickness of the hearth lining is inversely proportional to the heat flux of the cooling staves. The closer the localized depression erosion is to the cooling stave, the greater the effect on the heat flux of the cooling stave. If the localized depression erosion is far enough away from the cooling stave, it will have little effect on the heat flux of the cooling stave. On this basis, we summarized a method of judging the location of localized depression erosion according to the relationship between the localized depression erosion and the cooling stave heat flux. It should be noted that when the localized depression erosion is located at the junction of the cooling staves, the increase in heat flux will not be too large, which is easily overlooked. In order to prevent the occurrence of safety accidents, we should pay more attention to this situation.