Effect of bulk density of coking coal on swelling pressure

Coking coals are the important raw materials for the iron and steel industries and play an important role on its sustainable development, especially on the stamp-charging coke making with the characteristics of increasing the bulk density. There is a significance on the reasonable usage of the coking coal resource with the reduced production cost, improved efficiency of the economy to develop the stamp-charging coke making technology. Important effects of the density of coking coal on the coking and caking properties were investigated. In the article, the maximum values of swelling pressure and variation of Laowan gas coal and Xinjian 1/3 coking coal, Longhu fat coal and Didao coking coal, which were mined at Shenyang and Qitaihe respectively, were investigated under different bulk densities during the coking. The results showed that when the values of density increased from 0.85 ton/m(3) to 1.05 ton/m(3), for the Laowan gas coal, swelling pressure variation and even the maximum value changed slightly. The swelling pressure was 3.63 KPa when the density was improved to 1.05 ton/m(3); for the Xinjian 1/3 coking coal, the values of swelling pressure changed significantly and the maximum values was 82.88 KPa with the density improved to 1.05 when the coal was heated to 600°C. The coke porosity, which was investigated by automatic microphotometer, decreased from 47.4% to 33.1% with the increasing of the density from 0.85 ton/m(3) to 1.05 ton/m(3), and the decreased value was 14.3%. Meanwhile, the pore structures of four cokes were characterized by an optical microscope.