Development of an online blast furnace burden profile measuring system

Gas permeability in a blast furnace is directly influenced by the burden profile, which is the result of the charging angle collocation. An obviously increment in both iron-making productivity and furnace campaign life will be observed in a high heat utilization furnace with uniform gas permeability. An online burden profile measuring device without gas leakage risks and heavy maintaining load had been expected for a long time. But the thermal radiation, pressure and corrosive gas inside an operating blast furnace reduces both the performance and life cycle of its online instruments. Especially, intensive dust blowing in furnaces was the main problem that limited the development of online burden profile measuring technology. In this study, a special application of the radar ranging process on a compact scanning system was developed to measure the online burden profile. The innovated design in scanning successfully lowers the space requirement for system installation on the top cone of a blast furnace. Eventually, the profile discrepancy between the different sets of burden charging sequences can be compared from the online measurement results. The modulation in burden charging sequences to form a better gas permeability in a blast furnace will be consequently possible via the achievement of the developed online burden profilometer.