Investigation of the Hearth Erosion of WISCO No. 1 Blast Furnace Based on the Numerical Analysis of Iron Flow and Heat Transfer in the Hearth

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The abstract is well written, however, the significant finding on heat transfer in heart erosion needs to be highlighted. The comprehensive literature review on the numerical studies of heat transfer and iron flow is well presented in the manuscript. The manuscript is required for English and grammatical editing. 

 

The following suggestion and comments should be taken

 

• Please standardize the font size throughout the manuscript.
• Section 3. On what basis is this mathematical model referred to?
• Section 3.3. More information on SIMPLEC algorithm is required.
• The coke-free zone (CFZ) needs to be highlighted in Figure 3. 
• “Based on the calculated shear stress…” Kindly stated the calculated value of shear stress.
• “..height of 0.5m, 1.5m, and 2.5m…” How these heights have been chosen? Either it was randomly picked or based on the previous work?
• How did the earth's height was influenced the thermal erosion depth?
• Did the different types of bricks lead to the different results of penetration?
• Table 6 and 7 is preferable to be combined. Also, the optimum and lowest value of taphole inclination needs to be clarified in a similar section.
• Overall, please add some more critical discussion in the Results and Discussion part.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article deals very much with the management activities of the furnace. The length of the campaign affects the amount of pig iron produced between repairs, which will increase profits, and on the other hand, slowly reduce the costs of downtime and repair of the device. The authors analyze the situation using a variety of analytical tools and showing the problem from several sides.

The paper is well written and interesting. It presents the problem in clear and understandable way. The structure of the paper is correct and the subsequent chapters follow one another.

I found one problem with a manuscript - references. You cited 40 references nearly half of them (19) were published before 2010 and 20% (8 references) before 2005. I know there is big problem with with finding up-to-date literature, but I think they should be updated.

I have also one suggestion (I am not sure if it is possible, if authors did something in this topic). Could you compare your results to other blast furnaces? If yes, you could add it even in  conclusions.

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors made some revisions to the manuscript. The author needs to provide the sheet of “Response to Reviewer” for validation.

 

Specific comments are provided as follows:

 

• Abstract. The measurement data obtained from the hearth damage investigation need to be clearly stated.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf