Abstract
Rio Tinto Kennecott Smelter took an approach to study the performance of the Flash Smelting Furnace concentrate burner. The wear patterns of the air slide, disperser and shifted reaction shaft temperatures indicated that the delivery of the solids and air are not uniform at the concentrate burner. The approach to improve the performance included adjusting the air delivery to the windbox, flap installation in the airslide, and modifications of the disperser.
This paper will provide an overview of the action taken and the results of improvement of the concentrate burner performance. The authors conducted feed distribution study on the test platform. Experiments were focused on the feed uniformity across all the quadrants of the burner. The results were used to modify disperser to obtain more uniform distribution of the feed to the concentrate burner.