SHAFT FURNACES DEVELOPMENT FOR GRANULAR MATERIALS THERMAL TREATMENT

The contemporary shaft furnaces for the production of magnesia sinter have a very good performance indexes, which are, however, quite distant from their technological limitations. Thermodynamic, hydrodynamic and rheological processes don´t run optimally. The purpose of the research was to determine the reasons and optimization measures. One of the significant requirements was to process materials with lower granularity (20- 40 mm). The research was focused on the charging system modification, burner system modification, coke utilization in the middle part of the furnace, sinter heat utilization, increasing the insulation. Improvement measures are currently verified in the operational conditions. The result was conceptually new pilot shaft furnace determined for the further research. The basic features of the new shaft furnace are distributed burners enabled the secondary air combustion and thus the homogeneous heat generation through the furnace cross section can be achieved which leads to the significant improvement of homogeneity of temperature distribution through the furnace cross section.