Method for monitoring the wear of a refractory lining of a blast furnace

A method for monitoring the wear of a refractory lining of a blast furnace, the method comprising, using a computer:

• a. modelling in at least two dimensions at least a part of the blast furnace at an initial known state;
• b. defining internal thermal boundary conditions and external thermal boundary conditions of the modelized part of step (a);
• c. calculating a thermal field within said modelized part of the blast furnace considering refractory lining thermal characteristics and the internal and external thermal boundary conditions, said thermal field including a temperature field and heat path lines (Ln), a starting point of each path line (Ln) being a measurement point (Pn) and an end point being the internal boundary;
• d. measuring a temperature (Tmeas_n) at each measurement point (Pn);
• e. based on the thermal field calculation of step (c):
• e1—using the measured temperature (Tmeas_n) at each measurement point (Pn) as a starting value, moving a control point (Xn) along each heat path line (Ln) and determining a position (In) where said control point (Xn) reaches a critical temperature Tcrit,
• e2—determining a position of the hot metal solidification isotherm, said isotherm being a curve linking all previously determined positions (In) at which the critical temperature Tcrit is reached;
• f. calculating a new thermal field using the previously determined position of the hot metal solidification isotherm as new internal thermal boundary conditions;
• g. estimating a temperature Test_n at each measurement point (Pn) using the newly calculated thermal field;
• and
• h. calculating a convergence criterion CC between each estimated temperature Test_n and respective measured temperature Tmeas_n:
• if this convergence criterion CC is below a predefined target Δ, determining a wear surface of the refractory lining based on the position of the hot metal solidification isotherm,
• if this convergence criterion CC is above the predefined target Δ, iterating steps e to h until the convergence criterion CC is below the predefined target Δ.