Analysemethode für Hochofensinter

This work was realized in cooperation with voestalpine Stahl Donawitz GmbH. In order to check the quality of the sinter material for the blast furnace, regular sample analyses are carried out at the Donawitz site. At present, these sinter samples are taken by hand. In order to reduce the personnel effort and the personnel-specific process fluctuations, which negatively influence the reproducibility and thus the sample analysis, a concept for the automation of the sample taking and analysis is to be created and simulated. The concept is based on an already existing master thesis by Dipl.-Ing. Stefan Scherz [15]. In this case, the sample material is automatically collected at a transfer point between two belt conveyors using a container that pivots into the falling sinter. The sinter is then transported to ground level through a pipe system. In order to reduce material damage, the new concept should reduce the load on the sinter during transport to ground level. Furthermore, the possibility of transporting the material back is to be provided by appropriate automated processes. Additionally, the effort of the sample analysis shall be reduced and an automation, as far as this is possible, shall be realized. This thesis describes at the beginning the basic theory of a sintering plant and the most important sintering properties relevant for the transport (chapter 2). Subsequently, the necessary conveying equipment and the ¿Discrete Element Method¿ (DEM) are described in a fundamental way. After that, an overview of the actual state of the plant is given (chapter 3). The main part of the thesis describes the new concept of automating the sampling and subsequent analysis in detail (chapter 4). Finally, the simulation results are presented and discussed (chapter 5). With the use of ¿Discrete Element Simulation¿ (DE-Simulation), the flow behavior of the sinter was represented in a simulation environment with the designed aggregates. This allowed the functionality of the developed concept to be verified. With a friction value of 0.75, it could be guaranteed that no residues of material would occur at critical points, such as the pipe cross-sections, the transfer chute, the screen container, or the material chute. For the simulation of the sinter, the rotation of the particles was blocked in the simulation program. However, this led to problems with a new concept of a rotating vibrating screen. In contrast to the other components, the screen had to be simulated with rotating particles, as otherwise the particles did not behave realistic.