Steel is one of the most used and thus most important materials for our daily life and our transport, health and industry. However, the current steel industry is one of the largest contributors to CO2 emissions worldwide. Our research contributes to technological development of cleaner, greener, and more circular steel production.
Direct Reduced Iron (DRI)
As a cleaner iron production method, iron ore is directly reduced using hydrogen or methane. This new technology is still under development, where large-scale operation for producing reduced pellets is not yet understood. To increase the technology readiness level of direct reduction technology for production of DRI pellets, we work on the following topics:
- Determining the reaction kinetics of DRI
- Developing advanced multiscale modelling of the DRI process, involving Pore Network Modelling (PNM), Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD), Discrete Element Modelling (DEM), and reaction modelling.
- Understanding the relation of pellet structure and its evolution to physiochemical transformation of DRI pellets
DRI Smelting in a Reducing Electric Furnace
From reduction step, the DRI pellets are then smelted in a Reducing Electric Furnace (REF) to generate carbonaceous crude iron for further steel manufacturing. However, large-scale operation of the REF process for producing liquid iron form pre-reduced pellets is not yet a proven technology. To increase the technology readiness level of REF, we work on the following topics:
- Modelling the melting and carburisation of DRI pellets (Level-set and embedded boundary method)
- Determining physical properties and thermochemical modelling for REF applications
- Developing multiscale models (including an umbrella modelling framework) for the REF process
CFD-DEM Modelling of Blast Furnace
To date, blast furnaces (BF) have been the most crucial ironmaking process. Despite the maturity of this technology, the underlying complex physics are not fully understood. Our work contributes to development of advanced numerical models for simulating BF process, ultimately help to reduce the carbon footprint of the BF ironmaking.
We have developed a numerical model which couples:
- CFD to solve compressible/incompressible flows with added features like turbulence modelling
- Coarse-grained DEM to resolve solid particles鈥� motion, mass and heat transfer
- Particle-size dependent smoothing scheme to treat the CFD-DEM coupling of polydisperse particle systems
- Flamelet Generated Manifold method to effectively compute the complex gas combustion
This model has been used to predict the raceway dynamics in the injection zone of an industrial BF.
