Sustainable Mining and Metallurgy

In actual production operation, issues such as particle segregation, non-uniform distribution and raw material settlement often occur within copper flash furnace. In order to study the influence of non-uniform particle inlet distribution on gas-particle distribution, heat transfer and reaction characteristics in the reaction shaft of flash furnace, the particle non-uniform distribution at the outlet of the concentrate nozzle was set as the reaction shaft inlet boundary conditions. A CFD-DEM coupled model was employed for simulation analysis on an industrial-scale copper flash smelting furnace. The simulation results show that the uniformity of particle at the inlet directly affects the gas-particle distribution characteristics in the reaction shaft. Under non-uniform particle inlet conditions, the distribution of both gas and particles in the reaction shaft undergoes deformations, which may lead the high temperature closer to the wall, and consequently reduce the service life of the flash furnace. The non-uniform inlet distribution leads to localized particle accumulation. The heating rate and reaction rates increase within the 2m zone below the shaft top, and the average residence time in the reaction shaft slightly increases. By considering the non-uniform particle inlet distribution, the accuracy of multi-physics coupled simulation for copper flash melting furnace has been further improved, making the simulation results more consistent with actual production conditions, thereby providing more reliable guidance for process optimization.