Softening and Melting Behavior of Ferrous Burden under Simulated Oxygen Blast Furnace Condition

The softening and melting behavior of sinter, pellet and mixed burden was researched through high temperature reaction tests under load simulating traditional blast furnace (T-BF) and oxygen blast furnace (OBF) conditions. The results indicated that compared with T-BF, the softening zone of sinter and pellet became wide, but the melting zone became narrow in OBF. The permeabilities of both sinter and pellet were improved in OBF. Under the condition of OBF, the temperature of softening zone of mixed burden was increased by 63 K, but the temperature of melting zone was decreased by 76 K. Therefore, the permeability of material layer was significantly improved. This was mainly caused by the change of the melting behavior of pellet. In addition, the quality of dripping iron in OBF was much better than that of T-BF.