Provided is a blast-furnace operating method including: a first step of adjusting a charging rate of coke while monitoring a furnace-top temperature T.sub.top; a second step of adjusting an injection rate of pulverized coal while monitoring an in-furnace superficial gas velocity u and the furnace-top temperature T.sub.top; a third step of adjusting an oxygen-enrichment ratio of oxygen-enriched air while monitoring a tuyere combustion temperature T.sub.f and the furnace-top temperature T.sub.top; and a fourth step of determining whether an injection rate of the oxygen-enriched air needs to be adjusted, based on a value of the in-furnace superficial gas velocity u.

Provided is a blast-furnace operating method including: a first step of adjusting a charging rate of coke while monitoring a furnace-top temperature T.sub.top; a second step of adjusting an injection rate of pulverized coal while monitoring an in-furnace superficial gas velocity u and the furnace-top temperature T.sub.top; a third step of adjusting an oxygen-enrichment ratio of oxygen-enriched air while monitoring a tuyere combustion temperature T.sub.f and the furnace-top temperature T.sub.top; and a fourth step of determining whether an injection rate of the oxygen-enriched air needs to be adjusted, based on a value of the in-furnace superficial gas velocity u.

A direct reduction shaft furnace having at least one probe disposed vertically within the reduction zone thereof. The probe preferably extends from the top to the bottom of the reduction zone. The probe allows for gas sampling along the length thereof and transmittal of the gas to at least one type of gas analysis device. The probe may also allow for the measurement of the temperature and pressure of the gas sample as it is taken.

An object is to measure the fine ratio, or the ratio of fines adhering to the surface of lumps of material, in real time with high accuracy.

A fine ratio measuring method includes a step S1 of measuring a distance between a distance measuring device and lumps of material, a step S2 of calculating a feature quantity from distance data obtained in the step S1, and a step S3 of converting the feature quantity calculated in the step S2 to a fine ratio. The feature quantity calculated in the step S2 represents distance variation calculated from the distance data obtained in the step S1. A higher fine ratio in lumps of material means greater microscopic distance variation caused by microscopic irregularities in the surface of the lumps of material in the height direction within a three-dimensional shape. Therefore, by using the distance variation as the feature quantity, the fine ratio in the lumps of material can be measured in real time with high accuracy.

A method of heating up a furnace bottom and a burner lance used in the method are proposed. The method of heating up the furnace bottom includes a step of opening, in the tap hole, a burner lance insertion hole having a diameter larger than a diameter of the burner lance so as to penetrate into the furnace, a step of installing the burner lance in the opened burner lance insertion hole, a step of filling a gap between the installed burner lance and a furnace exterior side of the tap hole with a refractory, and a step of blowing in gas for heating into the furnace from the burner lance to heat up the furnace bottom.

A blast furnace fault determination apparatus includes a processor configured to: calculate a fault index indicative of a degree of fault in a blast furnace; calculate a ventilation index of the blast furnace; and determine a fault condition in the blast furnace using the fault index and the ventilation index.

A method for controlling a hot metal temperature, includes: a first control loop for calculating a target value of pulverized coal ratio such that a hot metal temperature, predicted by a physical model that is able to calculate conditions inside a blast furnace, falls within a preset target range; and a second control loop for calculating pulverized coal flow rate manipulation quantity to compensate for a deviation between the pulverized coal ratio target value and a current pulverized coal ratio actual value.

A method for controlling a hot metal temperature, includes: a first control loop for calculating a target value of pulverized coal ratio such that a hot metal temperature, predicted by a physical model that is able to calculate conditions inside a blast furnace, falls within a preset target range; and a second control loop for calculating pulverized coal flow rate manipulation quantity to compensate for a deviation between the pulverized coal ratio target value and a current pulverized coal ratio actual value.

A device and method for measuring the thickness of a cooling plate are related. The device is designed to fit inside a coolant channel of the cooling plate and includes a probe holder housing having a front sensor side and an opposite back side, in which an ultrasonic probe is arranged. A flexible cord is linked to the probe housing to assist the progression of the probe holder through the length of the coolant channel. The probe holder includes an expandable structure having front and rear levers articulated on the housing at opposite ends wherein spring elements are arranged to bias the levers towards one another. The expandable structure is configured to expand from a compact configuration to an expanded configuration, designed to bear against the inner surface of the coolant channel and bias the sensor side of the sensor housing against the inner surface of the coolant channel.

The present disclosure discloses a method for deriving fault diagnosis rules of a blast furnace based on a deep neural network, which relates to the field of industrial process monitoring, modeling and simulation. Firstly, a deep neural network is used to model historical fault data of the blast furnace. Then, for each kind of fault, the process starts from the output layer of the network, wherein sub-models of nodes in the adjacent layers in the deep neural network are established by using the decision tree in sequence, and the if-then rule is derived. Finally, the if-then rules are merged layer by layer, so as to finally obtain fault diagnosis rules of the blast furnace with blast furnace process variables being the rule antecedents and with fault categories being the rule consequents.