Application of fractal theory on raceway boundary in COREX melter–gasifier model

Abstract

The raceway has been studied extensively both theoretically and experimentally. In this study, particle velocity contours have been developed to define the raceway boundary. The raceway boundary is coarse and fragmentised, but all of the previous studies are based on Euclidean geometry, which regard the dimension of the raceway as an integer. In this paper, the fractal method of calculating raceway size, which describes the boundary with extremely irregular or fragmented characteristics, is on the data from a cold physical model of the raceway. The results show that the precise raceway boundary can be obtained by the particle velocity contours, that the surface area of the ellipsoidal raceway based on fractal theory is larger than that based on Euclidean geometry and that the data can be used as original boundary conditions of the flow and chemical reaction in the raceway region.

Keywords:

• COREX melter–gasifier
• Raceway boundary
• Physical simulation
• Particle velocity contour
• Fractal theory

This work was financially supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant no. N090402021).