Contents PARTI. KILN SYSTEMS AND THEORY 1, History 2. Types of Rotary Kilns 3. The Refractory 4. Fuels 5. Combustion 6. The Flame 7. Heat Transfer 8. Heat Balances 9. The Chemistry of Kiln Feed and Clinker 10. Reaction Zones in the Rotary Kiln 11. Coating and Ring Formation in a Rotary Kiln 12, The Air Circuit in a Rotary Kiln 13, Movement of Material Through the Kiln PART Il. KILN OPERATING PROCEDURES 14, Kiln Operating and Control Methods 15. Instrumentation 16. Kiln Control Variables 17. Fuel Systems 18. Clinker Cooler Control 19, Kiln Exit-Gas Temperature Control 20, Feed-Rate Control 21, Kiln Starts and Shutdowns 22, The 27 Basic Kiln Conditions 23. Kiln Emergency Conditions 24, Safety and Accident Prevention Appendix A: The International System of Units (SI) Appendix B: Weights and Measures Appendix C: Temperature Conversions Appendix D: Kiln Operator’s Quiz Index 17 ay 63 83 106 11s 141 147 155 174 199 201 207 232 253 266 292 299 308 327 346 eit 367 369 378 = 386Part I Kiln Systems and TheoryHistory Vertical furnaces and simple forms of shaft kilns were used for burning lime well over 2,000 years ago. History tells us that the Romans used a vertical furnace in which to burn a pozzolanic lime. Near Riverside, California are the remains of underground furnaces (Fig. 1.1) in which the early Mexican settlers burned limestone to make lime during the first part of the 19th century. In later times so-called bottle and shaft kilns were em- ployed. Vertical kilns of the type shown in Fig. 1.2 were constructed in Souther California about the turn of the century. Early development of the rotary kiln probably started about 1877 in England, but Frederick Ransome is usually credited with the first successful rotary kiln, which he patented in England in 1885. Although the first Ransome kilns were a major breakthrough in the cement industry at that time, many years passed before a successfully operating rotary kiln was put into production. It was mainly the pioneer work of American engineers a few years after Ransome’s discovery that brought the concept of the rotary kiln out of its infancy. The first economical rotary kiln in America, developed by Hurry and Seaman of the Atlas Cement Company, went into production in 1895. Shaft kilns with continuous feed are now used mainly and only for the burning of lime and minerals other than cement. Rotary kilns have re- placed these shaft kilns entirely in the cement industry. Although years ago, shaft kilns showed lower thermal and power requirements than rotary kilns, the advent of the preheater and precalciner kilns with their increased output and fuel efficiency has apparently made the shaft kiln obsolete for the buming of cement clinker.4 THE ROTARY CEMENT KILN Fig. Lt Remains of underground fumaces that were used by carly California Settlers for buming limestone to make lime. (Riverside Division, American Cement Corp.) The first Ransome kilns were 45 cm (18 in.) in diameter and 4.5 m (15. ft) in length. Later, about 1900, the rotary kiln grew to 1.8 m (6 ft) in diameter by 18 m (60 ft) long which in todays terms would have to be classified as miniatures. Kiln sizes really started to explode in the 1960's when they reached dimensions up to 6.5 m (21 ft) diameter and up to 238 m (780 ft) length. With these enormous sizes and corresponding high output rates a considerable amount of new structural and control problems started to evolve. Refractory life in the kiln became uneconomically low, coolers couldn't handle that high output especially not during upset condi- tions, and mechanical equipment failures became weekly occurrences in many plants, The energy crisis represented a blessing in disguise in matters of kiln design. Suddenly, fuel conservation became the number one priority item in most cement plants which led directly to increased construction of preheater kilns all over the North American continent. Although these pre-HISTORY 5 Fig. 12 Vertical shaft kilns were commonly in use in the latter part of the 19th century. (Riverside Division, American Cement Corp.) = heater kilns satisfied the need for lower fuel consumption, they didn’t meet the requirements for using low-grade fuel and ever-increasing demands for higher production rates. Tn an attempt to gain these higher outputs, the Japanese cement indus- try increased preheater kiln sizes to a point where they were back to square one, namely, these kilns again became too large; frequent mechanical problems and short brick-life became the norm just as in the times of the dry and wet monster kilns. The major breakthrough came in Europe where precalcination was successfully attempted in the late 1960’s using a very low bituminous shale as a component of the kiln feed in a conventional preheater kiln. Adding combustible materials to the kiln feed, at that time, was nothing revolutionary, for the author himself, in 1957, had burned a wet kiln in Canada that contained oil shale in the slurry. The European experience, however, was the first time such an addition was successfully tried in a preheater kiln and thus paved the way for today’s precalciner kiln. Precalciner kilns are the latest advance in cement manufacturing technology. They combine low thermal requirements, are able to use low- grade fossil fuels or other combustible materials, and show output rates that were considered unattainable only a few years back.