At a large copper smelter plant, the productivity of a smelting furnace and the quality of the product decreased dramatically. EnCata carried out thorough multiphysics processes modeling, which gave our customers the information they needed to create a plan for plant modernization.
Challenge
The core challenges of the project:
·The issue necessitated specific, in-depth knowledge of raw materials, technologies used, intermediate and by-products;
·The project had to be finished within a short timeframe of nine months;
·The processes of mass, heat, and phase transitions had to be combined in the computer models;
·The computational grid had more than 5 million elements, therefore standard PC power was insufficient to obtain accurate results in a reasonable amount of time;
·Lack of comprehensive information on the characteristics of the intermediate products and the inability of carrying out the experiment.
Approach & Solution
A research supercomputer was utilized for the majority of simulation runs since the size of the furnace (length 21 meters and height of the melting shop 9 meters) and tuyeres (diameter 0.2 m) blowing the gas mixture at a near-sonic speed precluded utilizing normal methods of model development. About 50 iterations were performed for the main model.
Technologies Used
In this project, we used a lot of technology, such as: Finite element analysis (FEA), Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), 3D Modeling, Technological simulations, 2D drawing.
Results
We built a parametric validated model which describes the processes that occur during copper concentrates processing in Vanyukov furnace. They are:
thermal → heat transfer from molten copper to the environment;
hydrodynamic → the flow of molten copper and its bubbling;
aerodynamic → movement of gases and vapors inside the copper smelting furnace.
The furnace manufacturers received the findings of EnCata’s research. The plant used the research findings and therefore improved the technological process' efficiency.
