A Study of Important Factors for Coalescence in Iron Ore Sintering
The quality of iron ore sinter, in particular its cold strength, is determined by its structure and composition. The sinter structure is influenced by the degree of coalescence in the sinter. A review of available literature has shown that research of coalescence in iron ore sintering is limited, although coalescence in other fields has been widely studied. This work has utilised analysis applied in other areas of coalescence to elucidate the factors that affect the degree of coalescence in iron ore sintering and the most suitable measurement parameters. Analyses of experimental results for two-dimensional images have shown that changes in morphology are more significant than changes in area during sintering. Solidity and pore area are the most suitable measurement parameters. It has also been shown that temperature and composition can significantly affects coalescence mechanisms.