Thermal Design of Midrex Direct Reduction Plant Recuperator

Authors

1 Assist. Prof., Mechanical Eng., Iranian Organization for Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

2 MSc. Graduate, Mechanical Eng., Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

3 MSc. Graduate, Mechanical Eng., Foolad Asrar Co., Tehran, Iran

4 MSc. Graduate, Materials Eng., Foolad Asrar Co., Tehran, Iran

10.22044/jsfm.2025.15218.3909

Abstract

One of the important components of the sponge iron production line in the Midrex process is the recuperator. Midrex recuperator has the role of heat exchange between combustion products exiting from the reformer and three independent streams of combustion air, natural gas and feed gas. The optimal performance of this recuperator is important from various aspects and it is necessary to acquire the technical knowledge of the thermal design of the recuperator for both its design and prediction of its thermal-hydraulic behavior. The current research addresses the thermal design of such recuperators with two design and off-design approaches. In this regard, relevant actions including the development of correlations for thermophysical properties of fluids in the form of polynomial functions of temperature, extraction and use of suitable thermal and hydraulic relations (among the large number of relations provided in the sources) and developing a solution algorithm considering interactions of tube-bundles were implementd. Also, the process of design calculations has been validated utilizing available data. Finally, as case studies, two different designs are presented for a specific set of process conditions.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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Journal of Solid and Fluid Mechanics
Volume 15, Issue 1
March and April 2025
Pages 33-49

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