Numerical simulation of afterburning and cooling of the combustible process gases before dust removal

Process gases are high temperature by-products of many metallurgical processes. They are heavily dusted and contain combustible components. The gases produced in an electric furnace at a copper plant are an example of such gases. Utilization of the gases from the electric furnace includes their afterburning in a chamber located behind the furnace, cooling before dust removal and dedusting in dust collection plants. The water and atmospheric coolers are used to decrease the temperature of the gases. A lot of waste heat is generated during the cooling process. Determining the possibilities of its disposal may have a significant influence on the reduction of the utilization process energy consumption. An appropriate mathematical model is required in this case. The paper presents the method of mathematical modelling of the afterburning and cooling processes of the gases from the electric furnace at a copper plant. The mathematical model was elaborated with the aid of the CFD Ansys package. The simulations based on the single-stage carbon monoxide combustion model, the k-e model of turbulence and the Discrete Ordinates radiation model. The examples of obtained results are presented in this paper.