Solid flow caused by buoyancy force of heavy liquid

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental and numerical study of the solid flow under conditions related to an ironmaking blast furnace. The flow of particles is driven by the downward gravitational and upward buoyancy forces. Consequently, the flow pattern and stagnant zone profile, strongly affected by the level of liquid and the position of discharging hole, are more complicated than those obtained when the gravitational force is the only force. DEM simulation can reproduce the experimental results well, which provides an effective way to simulate the solid flow and related complicated high temperature phenomena in a blast furnace hearth and understand the underlying physics.