In the RH process, the continuous circulation of liquid steel between the vacuum chamber and the ladle significantly affects decarburization and degassing rates as well as the productivity. Several CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) models have been developed to simulate the transient multiphase flow of melt and injected inert gas in RH plants in order to investigate the effect of different...
Chatter remains a critical challenge in cold rolling mills, as different vibration types can lead to severe strip defects or mechanical failures. This paper demonstrates the advancements in the Genius CM® system, based on its application at the Big River Steel (BRS) Pickling Line Tandem Cold Mill (PLTCM), in the context of enhanced Chatter root cause detection and vibration...
The steel industry is responsible for 7% of global CO₂ emissions, with the blast furnace–basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) process accounting for approximately 70% of the total emissions from steel production. Given the significant environmental impact, the European Union has set a target to achieve net-zero CO₂ emissions by 2050. Reducing carbon carriers, mainly in the form of coke consumption is...
Strategie di produttività, tracciabilità e sostenibilità con riferimento ai cristallizzatori per la colata continua dell'acciaio.
Compressed air systems represent a critical utility in energy-intensive industries, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors such as steel, cement, and chemicals, where efficiency improvements can significantly reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. This study presents an artificial intelligence (AI)-based methodology for the optimization of compressed air networks in industrial plants,...
High pressure grinding is gaining popularity and becoming the preferred method to remove surface defects from carbon steel semi-products. Reasons for selecting grinding over scarfing include for example higher flexibility of operations, optimized yield, easier and higher value recycling of the swarf, lower energy consumption and reduced carbon footprint. To ensure that ground semi-products...
The steel industry contributes approximately 7-8% of global CO₂ emissions. To reduce its environmental impact, technologies for producing “green steel” are being developed, including the use of the Electric Arc Furnace (EAF). This technology uses scrap, Direct Reduced Iron (DRI), and Hot Briquetted Iron (HBI) as raw materials, managing to reduce energy consumption
(-30%) and greenhouse gas...
To better demonstrate the entire operation cycle of the SCI framework at the event, given the impracticality of bringing bulky devices, it has been decided to create a digital twin of the process, to be shown to the audience via smart glasses. The interactive digital twin will display the various functional parts of the project, allowing the components created by individual partners to be appreciated.
Hydrogen-based reduction of iron oxide is a promising new technology in fossil-free steelmaking. In the process, the iron oxide is usually fed in a form of spherical pellets or briquettes. In solid-gas -reactions, the porosity of the pellets is assumed to enhance the reduction kinetics via the increase of the available reaction surface area at the reaction interface. However, the...
Heat recovery from waste gas in heavy industries, such as steel plants, is crucial for enhancing energy efficiency and sustainability. This process captures thermal energy released during production and repurposes it for other applications within the plant. This approach not only reduces operational costs but also minimizes energy wastage and lowers greenhouse gas emissions, supporting global...
In high-strength dual phase steel, where phase transformation continues even after the down coiling process in hot rolling, material deviation in the hot-rolled coil occurs due to differences in cooling rates in the radial and circumferential directions during the cooling process. This material deviation leads to short-cycle hunting of rolling load during the subsequent cold rolling process,...
The global iron and steel industry is being impacted by a decline in steel demand and volatile situation in the global market of raw materials. Manufacturers are challenged to reduce the production cost of iron and steel by modernizing the existing production facilities in conditions of continuously growing requirements for provision of environmental measures. Iron and steel industry is...
We present the open-source planning software DynReAct, which grew out of a research project on dynamic production planning and scheduling in the steel industry. The software implements a three-stage approach to the flexible flow-shop planning problem, comprising modules for long-term, mid-term and short-term planning. Long-term planning implements an order-less planning approach based on...
Austenitic stainless steel (ASS) is widely utilized in various industries owing to its exceptional corrosion resistance, heat resistance, and mechanical properties. Achieving ultra-high cleanness is critical to obtaining these desirable properties. To enhance cleanness, ASS is typically produced through vacuum induction melting (VIM) and/or vacuum arc remelting (VAR) processes, with Al or Si...
To reduce CO2 emissions during blast furnace operation, the usage of pellets is increasing compared to sintered ore. Pellets melt at higher temperatures and have superior reducibility compared to sintered ore, which allows for a reduction in coke consumption. However, due to differences in composition between pellets and sintered ore, the Al2O3 content in blast furnace slag is increasing....
The hydrogen combustion in reheating and heat treatment furnaces produces a new furnace atmosphere without or with lower concentration of CO2 and consequently higher H2O concentration. The higher water vapour content can change steel’s oxidation kinetic, as well as the oxide scale morphology and the oxide-steel interface features thus affecting the scale adhesion. The oxidation kinetics and...
“A smelting furnace (SAF, OBSF, ESF) has been recognized as an important new process step in decarbonization of iron and steel production. For de-risking the industrial projects utilizing new technologies, various test work steps have been necessary for scale up purposes. This paper is presenting Metso experiences and lessons learned from the in-house smelting test work. The most interesting...
The Fume Treatment Plant sizing needs to be highly customized. The steelmaking equipment characteristics and arrangement, the general site layout, the environmental local regulations and the best available technologies (BAT) for the pollution control have to be taken into account. The final choice implies always the comparison among different solutions regarding the fume capturing, the cooling...
The project involves the installation of a 1 MW electrolyzer that will produce green hydrogen via electrolysis, utilizing electricity exclusively coming from renewable sources. This hydrogen will fully replace natural gas in a heat treatment furnace, marking a significant step towards cleaner industrial operations.
The electrolyzer will be powered by a newly constructed hydroelectric plant on...
Manganese is an important alloying element used in steel industry and is mostly used for increasing the strength without compromising the ductility. Currently, manganese is added as ferromanganese in steel to form manganese steel. Hence the final steel formation goes through series of steps after primary raw materials extraction, namely, ironmaking, crude steel production, ferromanganese...
The Endless Bar Production (EBP) process reduces energy consumption by 60% and CO2 emissions by over 90% compared to conventional methods. By combining EBP with efficient melting technologies, the environmental footprint and energy balance of steel production can be minimized. This compact process with minimum material losses lowers the conversion cost of reinforcing bars by up to 40%. ...
The continuous casting process is crucial in metallurgy, yet its startup phase is often plagued by significant fluctuations and instabilities, complicating the reliable prediction of potential breakouts. Traditional breakout detection systems are typically activated only after steady-state conditions are achieved, which means they engage only after a considerable length of material has been...
Steel production in Europe is facing several challenges nowadays. The remaining high prices for energy and the demand on steel are some of the most pressing topics for steel producing companies. Energy efficiency technologies on the production site play an important role to improve the cost structure and the CO2 footprint to keep the competitiveness in the world market alive. Waste heat usage...
Steel plants are full of dust and gas and PCB has a tendency to fail if not protected properly. To avoid the downtime, it is recommended to use highest level of conformal coating to protect from dust and corrosive gases present in steel area.
Thermal management is a key criteria in steel plants. Innovation in technology has helped to segregate the power module heat from the control...
The increased production of direct reduced iron (DRI) in recent years, particularly in the form of metallised DRI pellets and hot briquetted iron (HBI), is a promising development in global ferrous metallurgy. One of the special features of these products is the fact that, unlike scrap, they do not contain any impurities that are harmful to the production of steel and can therefore be used in...
A central Manufacturing Execution System (MES) is a reliable and approved single-source-of-truth for production and material tracking. At the same time, a central system that integrates all automation systems and Enterprise Resource Planning can make it difficult to find slots for maintenance, updates or extensions. Its unavailability can be critical, potentially leading to a production...
The average plant worker’s age is increasing while headcount is leaner providing fewer opportunities to transfer knowledge from more to less experienced people. Workflow art, the correct methods to execute tasks, is being lost with retirees and leaner workforces while skill gaps and productivity pressures are increasing. The collection of these workflow arts is sometimes summarized into the...
Solid-state recycling techniques for metallic chips have been explored as a sustainable alternative to conventional remelting-based methods. The latest developments make these techniques promising in the production of bulk and dense materials, with the opportunity to obtain also multi-material components with this path. This study investigates the production of multi-alloy material through a...
Bell-type furnaces are an integral part of cold rolling mills for carrying out the annealing process. The technology of high convection in a hydrogen atmosphere (HICON/H2®) was introduced to the market as early as 1972. Continuous further developments have increased performance, quality, efficiency and reduced costs.
This next generation of sustainable bell-type furnace systems, called...
At Marcegaglia Ravenna plant has been implemented a novel production route, patent pending, of fully processed Fe-Si grades focused on industrial and e-mobility applications. In this study are reported the main metallurgical levers of the adopted production cycle and their effectiveness on the magnetic properties in terms of low loss, high permeability and absence of aging.
pere.barriobero@upc.edu>; Towhid.Faraji@imf.tu-freiberg.de; Mathias.Zapf@imf.tu-freiberg.de; roberto.elvira@sidenor.com; irene.calliari@unipd.it; mirko.pigato@phd.unipd.it; ebasagana@comforsa.com; avilalta@comforsa.com; juan.emilio.rey@upc.edu; pcalopa@comforsa.com; Ulrich.Prahl@imf.tu-freiberg.de; jose.maria.cabrera@upc.edu; martino.oliboni@studenti.unipd.it, anna.mazzi@unipd.it
In the...
Global steel companies are shifting from coal and natural gas-based production methods to hydrogen-based systems in pursuit of carbon neutrality. However, transitioning from coal to hydrogen significantly increases electricity consumption. To address this challenge, it is imperative to expand renewable energy resources, promote the supply of green hydrogen, and reduce its cost. In this...
Today’s long steel products market with ever smaller profit margins and stronger competition requires the use of rolling mills with minimized operational cost and the capability of assuring a final product of very high quality. Starting from these considerations, a PERT customer in Turkey decide to use the PERT BS (bi-Support Stands) in order to upgrade the existing section mill.
The new...
During the continuous annealing process in the steel rolling heat treatment procedure, the occurrence of buckling in strip is a common issue, especially in the heating and soaking zones. The lateral distribution of stress state of the annealing strip is the essential factor resulting in the phenomenon. However, accurately predicting it is very difficult. Many factors influence the stress state...
Currently, the CO2 emission in ironmaking industry is one of the biggest environmental issues. To solve this issue, some alternative carbon recycling ironmaking processes such as carbon recycling BF are under development. However, those cannot achieve true carbon neutrality. Our group has suggested a new carbon recycling iron making process, CRIP-D, using carbon-iron ore composite. In this...
This paper presents a novel robotic approach to enhancing safety and efficiency in steel plant operations, focusing on steel sampling, deslagging, inspection, and automatic ignition systems for Electric Arc Furnaces (EAFs). Designed for harsh industrial environments, these smart robotic solutions significantly reduce human exposure, improve operational accuracy, and increase...
In hot-dip galvanizing processes, achieving optimal zinc coating thickness while minimizing material consumption remains a significant challenge. Traditional control methods often rely on reactive adjustments based on delayed coating thickness measurements, leading to inefficiencies and increased zinc consumption especially at strip transitions with material and coating target changes. To...
Non-woven fabrics are surprisingly ubiquitous in daily life, appearing in everything from kitchen scrub pads and disposable floor wipes to baby diapers, building vapor barriers, and even aircraft insulation. These materials offer unique advantages in functionality, durability, and adaptability, making them indispensable across a variety of industries. One lesser-known—but highly...
Similar to the formation process of nature granite, the molten slag is directly prepared into large volume cast stone, where the stress is affected by the mechanical and thermal expansion properties of its crystallization, which is easy to crack and lead to cracking. The phase composition and thermal expansion properties of the silicon manganese slag cast stone prepared at different...