Smelter Gas Control Overview
A Water-Cooled Hood System for
Peirce-Smith Converters and Similar
Furnace Vessels
William Drummond and John Deakin
The DTS water-cooled hood system pro-
vides a hood design that can be used on
Peirce-Smith converters or similar furnace
vessels to allow converter off-gas systems to
operate at higher temperatures. The system,
which uses only one control valve, uses a
closed-circuit cooling water system for low-
pumping costs and minimal opportunity for
oxygen entrainment in the water. An air-
cooled converter hood can be replaced by a
DTS water-cooled system during the rebrick-
ing shut down, meaning retrofit installation
does not interfere with production.
INTRODUCTION
Since the early part of this century, the
Peirce-Smith converter has been used to
produce blister copper from reverbera-
tory furnace matte. Although the rever-
beratory furnace has been largely re-
placed as the primary smelting vessel,
the converter is still the most common
choice for the final stage of the smelting
process. Traditionally, converter gases
were discharged into the atmosphere
via a tall stack, using the natural stack
draft as the driving force. Often these
gases were discharged without any dust
removal except for a drop-out chamber
or a low-velocity balloon flue. Later, elec-
trostatic precipitators were added to re-
duce dust emissions.
Figure 1. The DTS three-hood system design.
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The standard method of cooling the
gas was to admit large volumes of air at
the converter/hood interface. The gas
temperature to the balloon flue was lim-
ited to less than 500°C, which suppressed
SO3 production in the system. Severe
corrosion or overheating was seldom a
problem.
Recent advances in environmental leg-
islation mean that most smelters now
have to treat converter gases in an acid
plant. In order to make acid economi-
cally, the SO2 strength is usually 6–
8 percent, and the total volume of gases
has to be minimized. This means that air
infiltration at the hoods must be kept
down to about 100%, which results in
gas temperatures in the hood of up to
700°C. Air-cooled hoods have difficulty
handling temperatures in this range.
Typical problems include
• Severe accretion build-up. Hot mol-
ten particles carried in the gas stream
tend to stick to metal surfaces if the
surface temperature exceeds about
400°C. These accretions are very
difficult to remove.
• Distortion. Hoods subjected to high
temperatures distort and allow
gases to leak into the building.
• Cracking and failure. Hood doors
and roof panels that are directly in
the path of the hot gas blast from the
converter mouth are particularly
susceptible to failure.
Water-cooled hoods were developed
to allow converter off-gas systems to
operate at higher temperatures. How-
ever, the early designs were not entirely
successful and soon gained a reputation
for high maintenance costs and prob-
lems with corrosion and leaks. Open-
circuit systems where cooling is pro-
vided by evaporation of some of the
circulating water have proved particu-
larly troublesome in allowing solids to
build up and block the water channels in
the hoods. The improper distribution of
water across the hood surface leads to
local boiling and structural failure. Low-
pressure boiler systems installed in some
smelters have been unsuccessful, as evi-
denced by the boiler drums now being
used as head tanks for other systems.
In the mid-1980s, Drummond Techni-
cal Services undertook a study to de-
velop a water-cooled hood system and
provide design criteria for general ap-
plication. The following criteria were
examined: gas- and water-side heat
transfer rates, water velocities and the
effect on boiling and burn out, metal
temperatures and corrosion, controls and
safety, and simplicity of fabrication and
installation. Literature studies, labora-
tory work, site testing, observations on
failed systems, and practice in other in-
dustries led to what was considered to
be an optimal general solution giving
satisfactory safety in low-maintenance,
long-life, water-cooled hoods.
DTS hoods, designed by Bill Drum-
mond and H.G. Engineering, are now
operating at the Phelps Dodge Hidalgo
smelter and the Noranda smelter at
Gaspé. A smelter at Mount Isa, Austra-
lia, is installing three hoods, and designs
are being undertaken for hoods at
Palabora, South Africa, and Hudson Bay
Mining and Smelting in Manitoba.
DESIGN CRITERIA
Gas- and Water-Side Heat Transfer
The majority of heat is transferred from
the gas to the hood by radiation.
– TG 4
q RG = 0.1723 Egα s
100 ↵
JOM • May 1999
where TG is the absolute gas tempera-
ture (deg. R), Eg is effective gas emis-
sions, and αS is the surface factor.
In addition, the radiation from the
mouth is transmitted via the gas to the
hood in normal working conditions.
– TS 4
q M = 0.1723 A K
100 ↵ M M
where TS is the slag surface temperature,
AM is the mouth area, and KM is the
mouth factor. When out of stack, this
radiation may impinge directly on to
the hood surface.
It was realized that the heat-transfer
problem was not readily calculable, and
the solution had to cover the worst pos-
sible conditions. A safe mean radiating
temperature equation was derived in
order to calculate the total hood heat
absorption; a maximum heat flux equa-
tion was also derived in order to calcu-
late maximum metal temperatures.
The process gas is usually 1,150–
1,250°C, but can be much higher in ves-
sels such as the Noranda reactor, which
uses coal as an auxiliary source of en-
ergy. In these vessels, it is possible to get
secondary burning in the hoods if the
fuel/air ratio is allowed to vary outside
optimum conditions.
The water-side heat-transfer coeffi-
cient is calculated from the formula
NU = K(PR)M(RE )N
where NU is the Nusselt number, PR is
the Prandtl number, and R C is the
Reynolds number. The coefficient is well
documented.
Water System
Three possibilities for the water sys-
tem were examined: high-pressure boiler
systems, low-pressure boiler systems,
and non-boiling systems. High-pressure
boiler systems have worked well in
steady-state processing in the copper
and other industries, and often the steam
can be profitably used. However, the
steam is only useful where the primary
process boiler provides a reasonably
steady base. For copper converters, the
high pressure boiler was not considered
practical or economically viable due to
their cyclic operation. As mentioned,
low-pressure boiler systems have been a
disaster and have generally been modi-
fied to operate as hot-water systems.
In non-boiling (hot water) systems,
bulk boiling is suppressed, although one
of the mechanisms is nucleate boiling,
where the bubbles are swept from the
surface by the speed of the water. Re-
search in the United States1 suggested
that the burn-out flux is given by
qBO = K (TB – TW) V0.5
where K is the metal constant, TB is the
boiling temperature at the surface, TW is
the water temperature at the surface,
and V is the water speed.
1999 May • JOM
This system demands that even at high
water speed there is an excess of pres-
sure to prevent bulk boiling, which can
cause metal failure at high heat fluxes.
At high temperatures, water pressures
are high, and the boiling margin is pro-
vided by a nitrogen atmosphere. At low
temperature, the boiling margin can be
provided by a head tank.
Metal Temperature and Corrosion
Corrosion on the water side is pre-
vented by suitable water treatment. In
closed-circuit systems where oxygen is
prevented from entering the water, this
treatment is less important, and it is not
usually necessary to use boiler-feed qual-
ity water.
Gas-side corrosion is dependent on
the operating temperature, which affects
acidic condensation on the gas-side sur-
face. This, of course, could be totally
prevented by operating above the acid
dew point, but acid dew points in con-
verter off-gas streams are often well
above the boiling point of water. The
system would, therefore, have to oper-
ate at high pressure to maintain surface
temperatures above acid dew points.
It has been found, however, that by
using carbon steel and maintaining the
water temperature above 65°C it is pos-
sible to get a satisfactory steel life on a
low-pressure hood. The theory is that
although acid condenses on the hood
surfaces, at these temperatures it con-
denses as a strong acid. Mild steel-corro-
sion rates in strong acid are relatively
low, so a reasonable hood life is possible.
Reference 2 presents this theory and
shows why stainless steels are not suit-
able for resistance to gas-side corrosion.
THE DTS WATER-COOLED
HOOD SYSTEM
The DTS water-cooled hood system
provides a hood design that can be used
on Peirce-Smith converters or similar
vessels such as Noranda continuous con-
verters (Figure 1). Advantages include
simple, low-cost fabrication using mild
steel boiler plate; a rugged, durable de-
sign; low maintenance costs; no accre-
tion build-ups; long panel life; easy in-
stallation (an air-cooled converter hood
can usually be replaced by a DTS water-
cooled system during the normal
rebricking shutdown); and simple op-
eration (the entire system uses only one
control valve).
The panel design uses a mild steel
boilerplate bent to form the gas-side sur-
face and connecting flanges. The back
plate is connected by Nelson studs de-
signed to meet ASME codes for hot-
water boilers. Any fabrication shop with
suitable plate-bending presses can make
the hoods. Panel sizes are determined by
fabrication and handling restrictions.
The cooling water system is designed
as a closed circuit; there are no open
tundishes or sumps. This means that the
cooling water is circulated through the
hoods without being exposed to the at-
mosphere. The benefits to this type of
system are no evaporation of the hood
cooling water, meaning no build-up of
dissolved solids; a minimal opportunity
of oxygen entrainment in the water, re-
sulting in minimal internal corrosion;
and low pumping costs as the pumps
only have to provide head to overcome
the system friction losses. Cooling of the
circulating water is by water-to-water
heat exchangers. A cooling-water head
tank is included in the system. It serves
as an expansion/surge tank and as a
make-up water tank. It also maintains a
constant pressure in the water system.
Each hood in the system is connected
to a standpipe. The purpose of the
standpipe is to provide pressure relief;
the hood then becomes an open vessel
and is not classified as a pressure vessel.
Most smelters operate several convert-
ers, any of which may be in-stack, on
stand-by, or shut down for maintenance.
The water-cooled hoods for all convert-
ers are on the same circulation system,
so that the operating converter provides
heat to the system and maintains the
required coolant temperature in all of
the hoods. A branch loop is taken from
the main header through the heat ex-
changers. Coolant temperature is con-
trolled by varying the flow through this
heat-exchanger loop.
The pump selection and piping de-
sign control the system flows. In a typi-
cal converter aisle, all hoods are identi-
cal, and the pressure drops in the piping
headers are negligible compared with
the pressure drops through the hoods.
Approximately equal flows can be pro-
vided to each of the hoods without the
use of control valves or orifice plates.
Each panel in the hood has a built-in
inlet header. A series of orifices between
the header and the panel distributes the
water evenly across the face of the panel.
After arranging the panel circuits and
designing the piping system, the size
and spacing of the orifices is set to pro-
vide the required flows to each panel.
There are no valves on individual cir-
cuits, as flow balancing relies on the
system design rather than on field ad-
justments. This eliminates the chance for
operators to unbalance the system by
inappropriate valve adjustments.
References
1. F.C. Gunther, “Photographic Study of Surface-Boiling
Heat Transfer to Water with Forced Convection,” ASME–
Transactions.
2. “Water-Cooled Jacket System for Waste Gases Containing
SO2” (Koseka Smelting and Refining Co. Ltd.).
William Drummond is president of Drummond Techni-
cal Services. John Deakin is vice president of H.G. Engi-
neering.
For more information, contact J. Deakin at H.G.
Engineering, 400 Carlington Drive, Toronto,
Canada M9W 5X9, (416) 674-8505; fax (416) 674-
8520; e-mail Johnd@hgeng.com.
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