A Visualization Method of Quantifying Carbon Combustion Energy in the Sintering Packed Bed

Carbon combustion provides energy to reach essential temperatures in the sintering packed bed. A visual and quantitative evaluation on the energy input distribution inside the bed is urgently demanded to learn energy-saving potential of sintering process and subsequently to suppress greenhouse gas emission. Herein, after a two-dimensional simplified model of sintering packed bed is established and validated against the temperature measurements on the sintering pot experiment, this work highlights a mesh based visualization method of quantifying carbon combustion energy in the packed bed. To be more specific, local transient temperature distributions in all meshed grids are first extracted from numerical simulation results. Then each grid is colorized according to the specific criteria on five pre-defined energy input (El) states. As a result, the effects of carbon segregation and cross-sectional shape on the energy efficiency of sintering packed bed are quantitatively compared and optimized. These two case studies not only demonstrate the principle, process, and application of the proposed visualization method, but also stimulate its future potential in various areas.