MMI-613 Advances in Iron and steel making (3-3-

0)
Objective: to acquire good knowledge on the modern iron making process using blast
furnace and on the production of iron and steel using alternate routes.
Iron making:-
Modern trends in blast Furnace Operation,
 Alternative routes of Iron Production (COREX, MBF -mini blast furnace-),
 Direct reduction process:
HYL- Gas-based Reduction in Stationary Retorts
SL/RN processes
Midrex- Fastmet process
Fluidized bed- Finmet Process
Steel making:-
 Review of electric and L.D. (Austrian steelworks at Linz and Donawitz ) Steel
making processes,
 Hybrid steel making processes, Ajax, Twin hearth, Tandem, SIP, OBM, high tension
electric steel making, processes.
 Continuous steel making processes WORCRA, IRSID, spray steel making, INRED,
ELRED processes.
 Production of High purity steel Nonmetallic inclusions and their effect on
properties of steel.
 Refining techniques, ESR, VAR, and Vacuum Degassing of liquid steel.
 Alloys steel making, tool steels and stainless steel making practice.
 Review of Iron and steel Industry in Ethiopia.

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Text & Reference Books:-

1. Reduction of Iron Ores – Van Bogdandy

2.IRONMAKING AND STEELMAKING-Theory and Practice-By AHINDRA GHOSH and AMIT

CHATTERJEE-HI Learning Private Limited, M-97, Connaught Circus, New Delhi-110001

3. Aspects of Modern ferrous Metallurgy – J.S.Kirkaldy & G.Ward

4. Making, Shaping Treating of steel published by United state Steel Corporation.

5. Introduction of Modern Iron Making – R.H.Tupkary

6. Introduction of Steel making – R.H.Tupkary

7. The Chemistry of Iron & Steel Making: And of Their Practical Uses by William Mattieu Williams

8. Handbook of Extractive Metallurgy, Fathi Habashi (vol. 1-4)

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 IMPORTANT DATA ABOUT IRON

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Historical developments of blast furnace ironmaking

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Developments after 1950
 Use of prepared burdens in the form of sinter and pellets
 Properly sized and better quality coke
 Injection of liquid, gaseous or pulverized solid hydrocarbons through
the tuyeres—the most widespread being pulverized coal injection
 Larger furnace volume
 Higher blast temperature
 Oxygen enrichment of the air blast
 High top pressure operation
 Better burden distribution—adoption of bell-less charging device
 Computer-aided process control.
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Comparison of performance indices of blast furnaces of 1960
with those of 1990–2000 for the best operating practices

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Basic features of some alternative ironmaking processes

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 FUNDAMENTALS OF BLAST FURNACE PRODUCTIVITY

Producing more hot metal from a blast furnace involves the following:
 Charging more raw materials
 Blowing more air through the tuyeres, more often than not, enriched
with oxygen
 Tapping more hot metal and slag
 Handling increased amounts of top gas
 Maintaining stable operation of the furnace in terms of control over
gas flow, and smooth burden descent
 Controlling lining wear in the stack, bosh and hearth.

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Major developments
 Switch over from a large size range of lump iron ore to the use of prepared burdens
(sinter and pellets)
 Better quality coke in a closer size range
 Injection of auxiliary fuels through the tuyeres—the latest being PCI
 Larger furnace volume
 Higher blast temperature
 Oxygen enrichment of the blast
 High top pressure operation
 Better burden distribution—the latest being through bell-less charging device
 Advances in the theory of ironmaking
 Much better understanding of the internal state of the furnace
 Computer-aided process control
 Online process simulation
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Concept of Productivity

The rate of iron production (R) may be related in a simple way to the rate of
consumption of coke as
R=Q /CR
where Q is the rate of consumption of coke per day.
CR is the coke rate
Since coke is not the only fuel used nowadays and tuyeres injection is common, a
more relevant definition of R in today’s context is
R = total volume of gas blown through the furnace in m 3 per day/
specific volume of gas required per tonne of hot metal
R, can be increased by implementing the following measures:
 Lowering the specific volume of gas required per thm
 Increasing the rate of gas blowing
 Combination of both the above
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 Elevation view of a blast furnace plant (schematic).
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 Schematic sketch of a blast furnace indicating different parts
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 Cross section of a blast furnace showing the different zones.
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 Blast furnace reactions and material balance

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 Combustion zones in a blast furnace.

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 Data required for process control of a blast furnace

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 Various probes used in a blast furnace

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Various zones in a blast furnace and the position of the probes .

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PROCESS MODELLING
 The process modelling of moving bed metallurgical reactors like the
blast furnace involves the non-linear constitutive and conservation
equations.
 It has to address issues related to a multitude of coupled processes
such as fluid flow, heat and mass transfer, kinetic and
thermodynamic considerations, moving boundaries, phase change
dynamics, multi-species and multi-phase flow, stress analysis, solid-
fluid interactions, etc.
 The situation is obviously extremely complex, and before the advent
of powerful computers, it was not possible to even attempt the
development of process models.

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-Cont’d-

 All developments of mathematical process models are directed towards

a better understanding of what happens within a blast furnace.
 The first attempt was restricted to one-dimensional steady-state
models based on kinetics.
 extended to one-dimensional dynamic and two-dimensional steady-
state models, incorporating rate and transport phenomena, solid flow,
phase changes, and other coupled processes.
 These models proved useful in improving the furnace performance,
particularly during the periods of stable operation.
 Though there is still a need for a global three-dimensional dynamic
process model for a better understanding of the internal state and
process behavior of a furnace, such models have not been extensively
used.
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 Blast Furnace Models and Their Purposes

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 Advances in the blast furnace to reduce the coke consumption

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 Schematic diagram of blast furnace and auxiliary hot blast stoves

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 Development in blast furnace measuring systems

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Comparison between the conventional charging Comparison of conventional and new agglomeration
method and coke mixed charging method process

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The schematic diagram for PC reaction in raceway

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Expected technical issues
and countermeasure at a
high rate of PCI into the
blast furnace

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(a) Total energy used and waste heat in
integrated steel plants;
(b) Typical temperatures and flow rates
of waste heat sources in integrated
steel plant

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 Schematic diagram for wet and dry granulation of blast furnace slag

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 (a) Rotary cylinder atomizer (RCA) with heat recovery ,
b) Rotary multi-nozzle cup atomizer (RMCA)

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 Utilization of hot slag in
(a) Pyrolysis of biomass ,
(b) Pyrolysis of solid waste

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Types of Models Available
The mathematical models that are available can be broadly classified
into three categories:
Fundamental or mechanistic models
Empirical models
Population-balance models
Effective process monitoring and simulation using any of these three
types of models can at best provide support for short- and long-term
decision-making.
For developing a comprehensive blast furnace model, it is necessary to
consider the conditions within the furnace as being made-up of a series
of flow of packets of steady state solids, gases and liquids.

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 -Cont’d-

 Dynamic models involve the utilization of mathematical/numerical

techniques as well as optimization and control packages based on
artificial neural networks (ANN) and fuzzy logic based modules.
 Such models facilitate the mapping of input/output conditions,
estimation of the internal state of the furnace, and
prediction of important control variables.
 The irregularities in the process such as improper burden descent can be
predicted using fuzzy logic based heuristic schemes.
 -comprise open-loop synthesis modules and real-time modules for
various raw data based process calculations.
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-Cont’d-

 -can form the knowledge-base required to provide real-time

information to various control process variables based on measured
data.
 Finally, it becomes essential to interface the plant
Distributed Control System (DCS) or
Data Acquisition System (DAS) with the model(s) using the
client-server architecture.
 A protocol has to be developed for communication between the client
and server machines, for handshaking and smooth data transfer.

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STEPS INVOLVED IN MATHEMATICAL MODELLING
1.General Formulation
• Transport and rate phenomena play critical roles in quantifying all
the in-furnace phenomena that take place. However, certain
limitations exist.
• The major pitfalls of utilizing this approach for prediction include:
the insufficiency of information as well as the lack of accurate
methodology for estimating the transport and rate parameters
involved in the individual steps.
• The generic forms of the governing transport/conservation
equations for mass, energy, momentum and chemical reaction
that are applied to simulate the internal state of the furnace…

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-Cont’d-
2. Identification of Framework

Pre-heating zone

Indirect reduction zone

Direction reduction zone

Melting and dripping zone (cohesive zone)

Tuyeres or raceway zone

Hearth/deadman zone.

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-Cont’d-
The process variables that play a role in defining the internal state of a
blast furnace in any of these zones include:
Temperatures of the gaseous and liquid phases
Molar fractions of CO, CO2, H2 and water vapor
Fractional reactions of the burden materials (iron oxide, limestone
and coke)
Bulk density of the solids
Gas pressure.

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-Cont’d-
The first step is to describe the process variables in terms of differential
equations. These differential equations can be derived based on
conservation principles. The important reactions that are normally
modelled include:
• Indirect reduction of iron oxide by CO and H2
• Solution–loss reaction
• Limestone decomposition
• Direct reduction of molten wustite
• Water gas reaction
• Water gas shift reaction

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