Quality estimation for the iron ore sinter obtained via separate blend preparation

This paper reveals that obtaining high-quality sinter, improved or stabilized by its size and strength, is a challenge to be solved by embracing both the formation of sinter with the strong structure and the optimal mineralogical composition of its bonds during the preparation of the sintering blend. The existing technological schemes of iron ore sintering do not allow producing the sinter where the amounts of fines with 0-0.5 mm of fraction would be less than the typical amounts of 8.1-20.4%. Therefore, the study to establish how the blend preparation with the preliminary made composites affects the parameters of iron ore sintering process and the quality of the resulting sinter has been carried out. It has determined that the use of separate pre-granulation has commonly positive effects on the process of blend preparation, namely it significantly decreases the amount of non-granulated fraction of 0-1 mm and increases the equivalent diameter of the granules, reduces the standard deviation and variation coefficient, indicating the more homogeneous granulometric composition of raw granules. © 2020 Trans Tech Publications Ltd, Switzerland.