**1. Introduction**

The blast furnace (BF) route still remains the dominant one in the production of liquid iron, which is the primary raw material for large-scale steelmaking. In recent years, the trend has been to construct larger furnaces and close small and inefficient ones. Along with the growth of furnace size, more liquid iron and slag are also stored in the BF hearth, and problems of draining and wear are encountered more frequently in the practical operation. Furthermore, due to tougher global competition, the furnace campaign lengths should be extended, and the furnace body should withstand operation under production rates that vary with the market conditions. It is today commonly recognized that drainage and wear problems in the hearth region play the key role in determining the BF campaign life [1].

Both practical and theoretical investigations have revealed that most of the draining and wear problems in the hearths of large furnaces are related to the state and behavior of the porous coke beds that fill them, i.e., the dead man. In order to fully utilize the potential of large BFs in terms of high productivity and lower unit costs of production, it is of considerable significance to understand the governing mechanisms of the dead man behavior in the BF hearth. However, knowledge and information about the dead man are still severely limited, mainly due to the fact that the hearth is the most inaccessible part of the BF, lacking direct measurements. Nevertheless, a number of publications related to or addressing different aspects of the dead man can be found in the literature. The purpose of the current brief review is to summarize these results in a comprehensive document, where the main emphasis is put on presenting contributions shedding light on the dead man state and assessing its influence on BF hearth performance, with respect to liquid flow patterns, hearth lining wear and drainage behavior. The basic modeling approaches used in the analysis are also briefly treated.
