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By Robert D. Pehlke

"Current continuous casting processes are going through a rapid evolution of advances and new developments. At the same time, intense efforts are being directed to the development of radical new technologies such as continuous casting of thin slabs and strip steel.Traditionally, the casting processes for steel have been anticipated by the development and implementation of processes in the non-ferrous industry. This trend is reviewed and what it may portend for steel is described.IntroductionThe continuous casting of steel has been a widely adopted process in the production of steel. The concepts for this processing go back into the early and mid 1800's; however, commerical development was delayed for a variety of reasons until the mid twentieth century.Beginning in the early 1960's, adoption of continuous casting was initiated and continues at this point in time to be accelerated. In Japan, more than 90% of the steel produced is continuously cast (1). More than 50% of the steel produced in the United States is continuously cast and this fraction continues to rise (2). Numerous examples can be cited of installations costing well over $200,000,000 which have provided a payoff in less than a year and a half. As this process has continued to be applied and its technology to increase, computer control systems have been installed. In particular, in the larger plants producing slabs, sophisticated computer systems involving the integration and networking of mini-computers, micro-computers, and mainframe including back-up systems at all levels are being utilized. Pehlke (3), and Harabuchi and Pehlke (4) have described the structure of these systems."

Jan 1, 1988

By G. Upadhya

Considerable success has been achieved recently in modeling microstructural evolution during solidification of castings bthrough the coupling of macroscopic heat transfer with microscopic solidification kinetics models. However, a complete model for simulation of solidification in complex shaped castings involves: (i) the description of fluid flow, during and after mold filling, coupled with (ii) heat transfer to the mold and surroundings by use of a macro model, followed by (iii) a description of subsequent solidification of liquid metal by use of a micro model for solidification of the alloy under consideration. This paper describes the coupling of solidification kinetics model to a 3D, transient, fully coupled fluid flow and heat transfer model. Coupling between the macremicro models is achieved by using the latent heat method. Micro models for the eutectics of gray, white and ductile iron are discussed. This coupled code has been used for predicting the thermal history and microstructural data for shaped castings. Various applications of the model, including prediction of shrinkage defects, grain density contours, and graylwhite transition region in the casting, are presented for a relatively complex casting geometry.

Jan 1, 1992

By I. D. Reznik

The flowsheets of converter matte production from sulphide copper - nickel and oxide nickel ores on Severonickel and Yuzhuralnickel integrated ,;corks are given. The cobalt behaviour in electrosmelting and autogenous ore smelting, converting and converter slag cleaning is observed. A list of acticles published in the 80 th is given.

Jan 1, 1993

By Merete Tangstad, Ragnar Tronstad

Ferromanganese production in electrical furnaces is quite an old process. However, as the furnaces are getting bigger, the requirements of cost, yield, product quality, emissions and security are raised. With the increased expectations, the fundamental knowledge must follow. Within the last 25 years there has been a great effort both in the industry as well as the academic environment to push the limits of this process. This article will show some examples of improvements within fundamental data, reaction mechanisms and emissions over this time period.

Jan 1, 2014

By Wei Luo, Yuanbo Zhang, Zhixiong You, Zijian Su, Guanghui Li, Tao Jiang

"In this study, the appropriate sintering process parameters for low-grade ferromanganese ores were investigated. The results showed that, under the condition of natural basicity (R=0.03), the optimal parameters were obtained as follows: moisture of mixture 9 .1 %, coke powder 9 .9% and sintering negative pressure 7 KPa. And the corresponding yield, ISO tumbling index and utilization coefficient reached at 80.18%, 61.27% and 1.515t·m-2·h-1, respectively. Under the optimal parameters, the emission of harmful gases, such as S02 and NOx, were reduced evidently with 30% of coke powder replaced by biomass charcoal. Moreover, it was found that the basicity had obvious effects on the quality of the sinters when it changed between 0.03 and 2.4. The ISO tumbling index gradually decreased from 61.27% to 55.47% with the basicity increasing from 0.03 to 1.2, then, it began to increase after the basicity further increased to 2.4.IntroductionManganese is mainly consumed by steel and battery industries, particularly in the steel plants and ferroalloy units. The consumption of metal manganese in the ferroalloy industry accounts for 85%-90% of the total Mn [1-2]. Therefore, ensuring sufficient manganese alloys is essential to meet the rapid development of steel industry. Recently, rich-manganese slag containing high grade Mn (>40%), low Fe (1%) and P (<0.03%) is considered as superior raw materials for manganese alloys. While the sinters made from manganese ores are major raw materials for producing rich-manganese slag with the increasing exhaustion of natural rich manganese lump ores [3-5]."

Jan 1, 2013

By Yuzhe Zhang, Matthew Andriese, Jiann-Yang Hwang, Guanghui Li, Zhiwei Peng, Tao Jiang

The microwave power absorption characteristics of iron oxides, including Fe2O3, Fe3O4 and Fe0.925O, have been studied by determining dielectric loss and magnetic loss distributions in 0.05-m-thick oxide slabs irradiated with 1.2-kW, 2.45-GHz microwaves. The results reveal that the dielectric loss is the main factor contributing to microwave absorption in Fe2O3 and Fe0.925O, while the magnetic loss dominates the power absorption in Fe3O4 below its Curie point. Uneven power distributions are observed in the slabs and this phenomenon becomes even worse at high temperatures at which the permittivity increases significantly. Quantification of power absorption in the oxides is of great importance for efficient and uniform microwave heating

Jan 1, 2015

By Yuanbo Zhang, Bin Xu, Guanghui Li, Xiao Kang, Chen Liu, Tao Jiang

Iron-bearing dusts, containing valuable constituents such as Fe, CaO, MgO, C, etc., are generally utilized as raw material in iron ore sintering. However, the dusts characterized by low granulating and refractory performances always lead to negative effects on sintering indexes. As we know, the innovative process named composite agglomeration process (CAP) has a series of advantages compared to traditional sintering process (TSP). In CAP, part or all of the iron-bearing dusts is made into green pellets with 5-15mm in diameter, while the rest of iron-bearing dusts and all of the other fine ores is granulated after mixing with fuels, fluxes and return fines. Compared with TSP, CAP could increase the ratio of iron-bearing dusts from 5% to over 20%. Meanwhile, the yield, ISO tumbler index and productivity reached 75.82%, 65.13% and 1.531t·m-2·h -1, respectively.

Jan 1, 2015

By Nickolas J. Themelis

The role of copper in the economy will not diminish in the 21st century. Following the tenets of industrial ecology, production and use of copper must take into account both human needs and also how to minimize "collateral" effects on the environment. Dispersive uses will be phased out and post-use recovery of copper will increase. This will result into an advantage for smelting processes that can accommodate mixed metal scrap and waste streams. The bath smelting processes of Noranda and Mitsubishi will continue to make progress but the dominance of the Outokumpu flash smelting will not be challenged until the Noranda reactor overcomes the obstacles to the direct production of copper, thus eliminating the need for a converter.

Jan 1, 1999

By Wenjun Duan, Zongliang Zuo, Qingbo Yu, Qin Qin, Junxiang Liu

Moving bed has been widely used in the field of heat and mass transfer and reaction between solid particles and gas. In order to enhance the heat exchange coefficient, there will be tube banks inserted in the moving bed. In the process of drying ammoniates particles or heat recovery from high-temperature particles with moving bed, the particles flow behavior around the tube banks is significant. In this paper, the particles flow behavior around the tube banks is investigated, and all the results can provide guidance for the design and operation of a moving bed.

Jan 1, 2016

By Yilin Fang, Alain Bonneville, Timothy. D. Scheibe, Zhijie Xu

"We present a hydro-mechanical model for geological sequestration of carbon dioxide. The model considers the poroelastic effects by taking into account the coupling between the geomechanical response and the fluid flow in greater detail. The simplified hydro-mechanical model includes the geomechanical part that relies on the linear elasticity, while the fluid flow is based on the Darcy's law. Two parts were coupled using the standard linear poroelasticity. Analytical solutions for pressure field were obtained for a typical geological sequestration scenario. The model predicts the temporal and spatial variation of pressure field and effects of permeability and elastic modulus of formation on the fluid pressure distribution.IntroductionIn order to achieve a substantial reduction of CO2 emissions and alleviate the atmospheric carbon problem, massive scale carbon sequestration is required involving millions of tons of carbon dioxide injection over several decades. The geomechanical response is important upon the injection of substantial supercritical carbon dioxide into deep geological formations. Supercritical CO2 is less dense than brine waters and the buoyancy driven flow of CO2 requires the aquifer to be capped by low permeability rock (""caprock"") to prevent the upward migration of C02 (as shown in Fig.1 ). Massive scale injection of C02 changes the overall stress state in the caprock and formation. This change leads to large deformation that can damage the caprock, create fractures, and open new flow paths for supercritical C02. Therefore, a coupled hydromechanical model becomes essential for the caprock integrity analysis."

Jan 1, 2012

By G. C. Yao

Iron and silicon impurities can form needle and branch shape intermetallie compounds in molten aluminum when there is no manganese. It is difficult to separate them from molten aluminum by electromagnetic separation. The Fe-Si-AI and Fe-AI intcrmetallic compounds were transformed into Mn-Fe-Si-AI and Mn-Fe-AI compounds by the addition of manganesc into molten aluminum, In molten aluminum the morphology of these intermetallic compound particles is lumpish and spherical. Migration resistance of these impurity particles is small, which is beneficial to separation. FeSiMnAl4 and FeMnAl6 arc paramagnetic. These impurity particles can be moved by magnetic force and can be separated from the molten aluminum.

Jan 1, 2003

By Kent D. Peaslee

When supersonic oxygen jetting is used in electric furnace steelmaking, the lance jet axis is typically inclined at larger angles to the vertical than is used in basic oxygen steelmaking. The supersonic jet is important not only for refining the steel, but for sustaining the foamy slag in the electric furnace. Physical modeling was carried out using a room temperature, two-dimensional slice apparatus in which mercury represented the metal and water-glycerol the slag. High speed video photography with image analysis was used to study the effects of the angle of inclination on the slag/metal bath. Mathematical modeling using FLUENT provided a method of predicting flow patterns and the trajectories of drops injected at various points in the flowfield. A one-half scale water model of the system, in which lance heights, angles, and flowrates simulated those encountered in steelmaking operations, was used to provide a better understanding of some aspects of the oxygen blowing process in electric furnace steelmaking.

Jan 1, 1994

By A. F. Saavedra, N. E. Richards, C. J. McMinn

"The aluminum industry in general and Reynolds Metals Company in particular have continued to support development work for improvement of the Hall cell design and for alternative processes for the reduction of alumina. The evolution of the Hall cell design will continue into the next century as a result of further development of mathematical models, sophisticated control systems and new materials for cell components. This paper discusses the areas in which the new generation cell advances will differ from the present day design. Additionally, Reynolds Metal s has supported work for the development of a carbo thermic process to reduce alumina. Theoretical work has indicated that this process could possibly have economic advantage over the Hall process. Several complicated furnace configurations have been proposed to provide the conditions for successfully reducing alumina. The results of small pilot scale operation and most promising furnace design are discussed. For comparison, projected capital investment costs and operation costs are discussed. IntroductionThe evolution of the Hall-Heroult process will continue into the next century. This evolution will be influenced by economics, more .restrictive environment and worker protection requirements, and technological development. These factors will also cause changes in the competitive position of alternate processes for aluminum production.Several aluminum producers have made major investments in alternate processes for aluminum production in the past three decades and there is continued support in some companies for improvements in the Hall-Heroult process and for alternate processes. The more visible development work in reduction technology, not aimed at significant process changes, is in the areas of higher amperage cells with bus bar designs to reduce harmful magnetic effects, more advanced and automated feed, voltage and electrolyte composition control, improved energy efficiency and sol id waste disposal . Efforts to bring significant change to the reduction process are being made in development of materials that can function as inert anodes and cathodes. These materials could lead to the development of reduction cells with multiple bipolar electrodes operating on oxide feed and fluoride electrolytes. Development work on new processes was reduced in the last decade by several companies because of economic and technological realities. Reynolds Metals supported work on a carbothermic process to reduce alumina and produce commercial pure aluminum. This work progressed through small pilot plant operation, and resulted in development of furnace designs and operation regimes. This paper reviews how this and other technologies could influence the reduction of alumina beyond the year 2000."

Jan 1, 1988

By H. Y. Sohn, Joshua E. Ramos, Moo Eob Choi

"A new technology for ironmaking based on direct gaseous reduction of iron ore concentrate is under development. This technology would drastically lower CO2 emission and reduce energy consumption by nearly 38% of the blast furnace requirements. Experiments were performed using iron oxide concentrate at 1150oC in a bench-scale facility, which was the highest temperature that could be reached in the facility. The reduction extent was determined at residence times of 3.5 - 5.5 seconds in which the reduction extent approached 43% with 0% excess H2 and 95% with 860% excess H2. Separate kinetics measurements showed that the rate is much faster at 1200 - 1400 oC. Experiments were also carried out using syngas (mixtures of H2 + CO). About 90% reduction in 3.5 seconds with 860% excess hydrogen contained in the syngas demonstrated sufficiently fast reduction for a suspension process and the feasibility of usingsyngas instead of pure hydrogen.IntroductionDespite the improvements in the modern blast furnace (BF) process, it suffers from many drawbacks. The process requires the feed in the form of sinters or pellets and high-grade coking coal. Thus, BF iron production is projected to decrease gradually [1]. The main factors for this are the environmental regulations [2] and the high capital investment cost.A large number of new ironmaking technologies have been developed or are under development [3]. Most of these processes, however, are not sufficiently intensive to replace the blast furnace because they cannot be operated at high temperatures due to the sticking and fusion of particles. Therefore, a new technology is under development for producing iron directly from fine concentrates by a gas-solid suspension technology, which would reduce energy consumption by about 38% of the amount required by the blast furnace and drastically lower environmental pollution, especially CO2 emission, from the steel industry."

Jan 1, 2009

By M. B. Sizgoric

Quantitative mineralogy is used in a study done on an Inco Metals Company nickel sulfide occurrence from &apos;the Thompson area in Northern Manitoba. The study included: a) determination of the variations in chemical composition of the ore minerals; b) determination of the liberation of the ore minerals for the various types of ore and for different feed grinds; c) assessment of the preliminary mill test results by comparing the mineral distribution in the different tailings. Preliminary mill test results had outlined three main problem areas: 1) unacceptabiy low grade concentrate with, 2) very high weight recovery and, 3) low pyrrhotite rejection resulting in a high sulfur concentrate. The mineralogical study readily explained these results by showing that: 1) between 20 and 40% of the nickel in the feeds and 55 and 75% of the nickel lost in the tailings is associated with pyrrhotite. This accounts in part for the low grade of the concentrates obtained at high recoveries: 2) hexagonal nonmagnetic pyrrhotite constitutes over 90 percent of pyrrhotite. Since hexagonal pyrrhotite floats more readily than monoclinic pyrrhotite, this could be part of the reason for the undesirable high pyrrhotite recoveries into the concentrates. Further test work to establish both the optimal grind and the best conditions for pyrrhotite rejection is therefore mandatory.

Jan 1, 1981

By O. Norman Lotter

There are many scales of innovation in the pursuit of concentrator performance improvement, including paradigm change, inventive change and incremental change. All are important, but the last is low risk, low cost and has a relatively high probability of success, given the right metallurgical skills. Seeking continuous improvement is also essential to ensure that performance does not decline over time due to ore type changes, personnel changes, equipment wear and other factors. When properly implemented, these small gains offer a very high rate of return for the project cost because they are made from marginal, not total, operating costs of the plant. To be effective this approach requires plant trials that use designed structure and appropriate statistics to test the observed differences arising from the old and new process treatments, be they a change in flotation reagent, in grind, pulp density, etc. However the pursuit of small but financially significant performance gains is often regarded as fruitless because of the range of variance in plant data, and the consequent difficulty of ‘proving’ that a benefit has been achieved. Opportunity for improvement is thus sometimes relegated to the realm of the impossible, or at best, treated with skepticism. Operations managers prefer to look for the larger gains, which are easier to demonstrate and prove. Unfortunately, these are seldom to be found; rather, a large gain can be more easily made by executing a series of small recovery improvements that are together equivalent to the ephemeral single large gain. In this paper we advocate a policy of continuing improvement driven by rigorous performance testing protocols and a formal ‘risk analysis’ approach to judging the efficacy of changes implemented in the plant. Following these simple procedures allows rational decisions to be made on the basis of quantifying risk and reward. In particular we consider the choice of hurdle rate for decision-making which best balances risk and reward. It is shown through case studies from actual industrial practice that this approach is practical and delivers significant financial value to the operation.

By J. Markussen

The Falconbridge Matte Leach Plant was based on leaching Ni-Cu matte with strong hydrochloric acid in rubber lined equipment. It operated from 1968 to 1983 as a precursor to Nikkelverk&apos;s present C12 Leach. The process comprised two S.X. systems. NiC12.4H20 crystallization, crystal drying, NiC12.H20 pyrohydrolysis and HC1 gas recovery. The naphtha fired fluid bed pyrohydrolyzer produced granular NiO, subsequently reduced with H2 to granular nickel for sale. The development and operation of the pyrohydrolyzer are described

Jan 1, 1991

By Frederico Muylaert Margem, Jarbas Bravo Neto, Sergio Neves Monteiro

"The mechanical behavior and the fracture characteristics of composites with DGEBA/TETA epoxy matrix reinforced with up to 40% in volume of continuous and thinner ramie fibers were evaluated by tensile tests. Specimens with selected thin fibers aligned along the tensile axis were room temperature tested to rupture. The fracture surface was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy. The results showed significant increase in both the ultimate tensile strength and the elastic modulus. The fracture analysis indicated the possible mechanism for the fiber/matrix interaction, which could be responsible for the composite performance.IntroductionThe fiber reinforced polymer composite emerged in the middle of last century as a versatile engineering material for applications requiring mechanical resistance in association with lightness. Its most commonly used example is ""fiberglass'', i.e., a thermoset polymer matrix composite reinforced with glass fiber. Indeed, ""fiberglass"" has a specific strength of the order of 500 MPa.cm3/g, which is the double of the strongest steels like the maraging. This motivated, at earlier times, ""fiberglass"" to replace many conventional materials including wood and natural fiber composites. Today, ""fiberglass"" has a wide range of uses from aerospace systems and appliances to sport and leisure components. However, its fabrication as well as those of any synthetic fiber such as carbon and aramid composites, requires a relatively large amount of energy. Presently, a growing concern exists regarding the consequences to the environmental by gases like C02 associated with both the energy consumption and the processing of synthetic fibers and their composites. These gases are well known responsible for global warming [1]."

Jan 1, 2011

By Anja Pfennig, Axel Kranzmann, Sabrina Schulze

The CCS technique involves the compression of emission gasses in deep geological layers. To guarantee the safety of the site, C02-corrosion of the injection pipe steels has to be given special attention when engineering CCS-sites. To get to know the corrosion behaviour samples of the heat treated steel 1.7225 42CrMo4, used for casing, and the stainless injectionpipe steel 1.4034 X46Cr13 were kept at T=60 °C and ambient pressure as well as p=lOO bar for 700 h - 8000 h in a C02-saturated synthetic aquifer environment similar to possible geological on-shore CCS-sites in the northern German Basin. The isothermal corrosion behaviour obtained by mass gain of the steels in the gas phase, the liquid phase and the intermediate phase gives surface corrosion rates around 0.1 to 0.8 mm/year at ambient pressure and much lower about 0.02 to 0.2 mm/year at 100 bar where the C02 is in its supercritical state. Severe pit corrosion with pit heights around 4.5 mm are only located on the 42CrMo4 steel. Main phase of the continuous complicated multi-layered carbonate/oxide structure is siderite F eC03 in both types of steel.

Jan 1, 2013

By Brent W. Madsen

The acid-ferric sulfate leaching of low-grade sulfide copper mine waste provides more than 10 percent of the U.S. supply of new copper, but recoveries and leaching rates are very low. In Federal Bureau of Mines research to improve the leaching process, experiments on 5- to 10-ton lots of mine-run ore were more revealing than bench-scale tests on fine ore. This report discusses the results obtained by leaching run-of-mine and minus 6-inch plus 112-inch samples of low-grade chalcocite-bearing mine waste. The samples were leached for 461 days and 61.6 and 37.7 percent of the copper was extracted from the minus 6-inch plus -112-inch and run-of- mine samples, respectively. A mixed kinetics model was applied successfully to the leaching of the sample with the fines removed where bulk solution transport was not rate controlling. The model, when applied to the run-of- mine ore, gave somewhat higher predicted copper extractions than experimentally determined. Subsequently, oxygen was introduced into the run-of- mine ore, leaching continued for an additional 312 days, and an additional 53.0 percent of the copper was extracted. Before the leaching experiment was dismantled and the residue sampled, the ore was treated with sulfur dioxide and its permeability was improved markedly. The results of each of these procedures are interpreted in relation to the attendant condition of the test.

Jan 1, 1976