Gas resistance characteristics in vertical tank with irregular sinter for waste heat recovery

To accurately evaluate the economy and feasibility of sinter vertical tank cooling process, the gas resistance characteristic in the packed bed with the mono-size and multi-size sinter was studied. Firstly, the characteristics of sinter particles were characterized by drainage method, equivalent sphere volume method and weighing method, etc. Then, the gas resistance in the packed bed of mono-size and multi-size sinter with different particle sizes was measured by self-made fixed bed test apparatus. Finally, the resistance correlation in the form of ERGUN was obtained by modifying. The results show that the influence of gas velocity on the gas resistance per unit height(ΔP/L) of mono-size and multi-size sinter is the same, which increases in a quadratic relationship. However, the effect of the equivalent particle size (dp) on ΔP/L of mono-size and multi-size sinter is different. ΔP/L of mono-size is mainly affected by the voidage, which leads to an exponential decrease of ΔP/L and the decrease of its attenuation amplitude with the increase in dp. ΔP/L of the multi-size is not only determined by voidage, but also depends on the particle size composition. This not only makes ΔP/L decrease with the increase of dp, but also causes its attenuation amplitude to ascend firstly and then descend. Furthermore, the resistance correlation obtained in this paper can accurately predict the gas resistance in the packed bed with mono-size and multi-size sinter with mean relative errors of 3.59% and 3.39%, respectively. However, the particle size distribution of multi-size is wider than that of the mono-size, which results in ΔP/L of mono-size with about 25% lower than that of multi-size with the same equivalent particle size. This indicates that the resistance correlation of mono-size is not suitable for multi-size. © 2021, Central South University Press. All right reserved.