Rotary furnaces are used as reactors to intensify chemical processes between the powder and gas atmosphere around it. The furnace rotation leads to relative motion and dilation of the powder layers, facilitating gas access. The paper is devoted to the modeling of nickel oxide powder behavior in a rotary furnace to estimate the contribution of furnace rotation speed to gas permeability when the nickel oxide granules are reduced in a hydrogen atmosphere. Discrete element modeling of powder granules in a rotary furnace was conducted employing Altair EDEM commercial software to estimate the powder gas permeability at different stages. The powder bed in a horizontal cylindrical rotary furnace was modeled as a packing of identical spherical granules with diameters equal to those of the nickel oxide granules. The furnace rotation led to periodic oscillations of the powder along the furnace wall with an amplitude that gradually diminished to some steady value. Gas permeability of the powder bed was evaluated through the porosity function, derived from the Carman permeability equations. Greater gas permeability resulting from significant powder dilation was observed only in active shear zones on the powder bed surface and in the contact area between the powder and the furnace wall. Sizes of the shear zones depended on the furnace rotation speed but never exceeded several granule diameters for all rotation speeds. The efficiency of a rotary furnace as a chemical reactor was shown to be determined not only by the powder dilation but also by the regeneration rate for the powder bed surface. The regeneration rate can be calculated and changes nonlinearly with the furnace rotation speed.

旋转炉用作反应器，以强化其周围的粉末和气体气氛之间的化学过程。炉子旋转导致粉末层的相对运动和膨胀，促进气体进入。本文致力于对旋转炉中氧化镍粉末的行为进行建模，以评估氧化镍颗粒在氢气气氛中还原时炉转速对气体渗透性的影响。采用 Altair EDEM 商业软件对旋转炉中的粉末颗粒进行离散元建模，以估算不同阶段的粉末气体渗透率。卧式圆柱形旋转炉中的粉末床被建模为相同球形颗粒的填料，其直径等于氧化镍颗粒的直径。炉的旋转导致粉末沿着炉壁周期性振荡，其振幅逐渐减小到某个稳定值。粉末床的透气性通过由卡曼渗透性方程导出的孔隙率函数来评估。仅在粉末床表面上的活跃剪切区域以及粉末与炉壁之间的接触区域中观察到显着的粉末膨胀导致更大的气体渗透性。剪切区的尺寸取决于炉子的旋转速度，但对于所有旋转速度都不会超过几个颗粒直径。旋转炉作为化学反应器的效率不仅取决于粉末膨胀，还取决于粉末床表面的再生速率。再生速率可以计算并随炉转速非线性变化。