The water-sealed circular cooler system for sintering is a key waste heat recovery facility in the sintering process.In traditional waste heat recovery evaluation methods,there are problems such as the separation of the circular cooler and waste heat boiler,significant deviations in air leakage rate calculations,and incomplete analysis of waste heat utilization efficiency，therefore it is difficult to accurately evaluate the waste heat recovery performance of the sintering process.In this paper，a coupled heat balance calculation method for the dual system of circular cooler and waste heat boiler is used to establish the evaluation indicators for waste heat analysis in the water-sealed circular cooler system for sintering. The key parameters of the waste heat boiler and the circular cooler are coupled to calculate the air leakage rate，the heat losses during the waste heat recovery process of sintering are quantified. Thermal performance tests and heat balance calculations indicate that the air leakage rate of the circular cooler for sintering is 19. 41% and the waste heat recovery rate is 60.03%.The primary factors affecting waste heat recovery efficiency are the system air leakage rate and the heat loss from exhausted gases in the latter sections. Practical applications show that after corresponding optimization methods and measures are taken， the waste heat recovery utilization rate of the circular cooler system for sintering increases from 60.03% to 66.73%.The model studied in this paper has high accuracy and stability， so it can provide data support for analyzing and evaluating the factors affecting waste heat recovery.