Alternative reduction agents like oil, coal dust, natural gas, coke oven gas and recycling plastics are an important measure to reduce blast furnace operation costs. The injection of plastic pellets into the blast furnace raceway at voestalpine's blast furnace HO A in Linz (Austria) was simulated using a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool. The conversion and gasification of the plastic particles at high temperatures and high heat flux rates was investigated. Important particle data were obtained from ultimate and optical analysis. Combined with thermoanalytical data and results from Laser experiments simulating high heat transfer rates these data were used to implement a modified discrete particle model (DPM). CFD simulations with a simple plug-flow reactor geometry were performed to verify this model. Also a new approach to simulate the shape of the raceway was used to keep the computational effort low compared to a full eulerian multiphase model. The final model was applied to a CFD-simulation of a blast furnace segment with detailed geometry to investigate the raceway formation. The conversion of the particles, resulting temperatures as well as the formation of reducing species were also studied.
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