The current study has investigated the particles profile of the SSAB Luleå ladle in the sulfur refining station. The study has modeled the particles using the passive scalar transport concept where the buoyancy force is manually coded.

The study suggest that increase in the number of ports from two (current set up) to four with the same material feeding rate will distribute the particles more evenly into the bath. Moreover, the study also suggests that positioning the lance at the bottom of the ladle, while the lance has only two jet ports similar to the current practice, will produce rather similar particle distribution at the upper region of the domain. The study shows a practical benefit of positioning the lance at the bottom of the ladle can be the residence time of the particles and elimination of stagnant zone below the lance in normal operation. Finally, the study shows that activating the porous plug will result in an asymmetrical profile.

The simulation suggested that this asymmetrical behaviour is not affecting the distribution profile of the particles in region around the lance but the magnitude. Furthermore, the model seems to suggest that the number of particles in zones below the lance on either side is three orders of magnitude larger than the reference case while the profiles of these zones are rather similar to the reference case. Furthermore, in the case of zone immediately below the lance, the profiles seem to behave rather differently on different side of the porous plug while in case of zone in front of it the profiles are very similar but with a slight difference in the magnitude.

The steel industry, in accordance with the momentum of greener industry, has welcomed the changes and is actively pursuing that objective. One such activity is the commitment to energy recovery from by-products such as slag since the average energy content of ferrous slags is around 1 to 2 GJ/t(slag). The recovered energy could, then, be used in heating or drying process among others. The RecHeat was designed and modelled iteratively to achieve an optimised heat recovery apparatus. The model shows that the temperature of different sections of the heat exchanger part varies from 170 to 380 degrees C after slag pouring while the average air temperature at the entrance of the heat exchanger is less than 150 degrees C. Furthermore, the temperature of the fluid medium changes from 125-140 degrees C to 260-340 degrees C from one end of the heat exchanger part to the other at the end of the simulation. The outlet temperature at the end of the simulation is calculated to be around 340 degrees C, which shows an increase by at least 200 degrees C in the temperature of the air entering the apparatus.

A novel horizontal stirring has been introduced to investigate the effect of such a stirring on the ladle profile during the combined stirring process at the refining stage. The multiphaseInterFoam solver has been updated to consider the induction forces imposed on the liquid bath by the magnetic stirrer.During the combined stirring stage, the gas plume is affected by the rotational movement. The gas plume seems to be intact in the lower one-third of the domain, then breaks into clusters in the upper section while the rotational movement of clusters dissipates a large portion of upward momentum of the bubbles. This prevents large openings in the slag layer and respectively, prevents the exposure of steel. It also disperses the bubbles to various sections of the ladle. Hence, such a novel stirring strategy seems to have the potential of improving the cleanness of the liquid steel during the ladle refining process.

A mathematical model based on the continuum mechanic concept has been developed to describe the profile of solid particles in a blast furnace with respect to the in-furnace conditions and characteristics, e.g., the shape and size of the deadman. The Navier-Stokes differential equation for multi-phase multi-dimensional space has been used to describe the behavior of existing phases. The equation has been modified to make it possible to describe the dual nature of the solid phase in the system by applying the concept of the solid surface stress to characterize the inter-granular surface interactions between particles. Since different phases co-exist in a blast furnace, the volume fraction plays an important role in a blast furnace. Therefore, the influence of three different packing densities (0.68, 0.71, and 0.74, respectively) on the profile of the flow in the upper part of a furnace down to the tuyeres level has been studied. It is shown that an increase in the volume fraction of the solid phase lead to a decrease in magnitude of the velocity. The decrease in the magnitude of the velocity due to an increase in the solid volume fraction will increase the resident time of the particles inside a blast furnace. In addition, it is shown that the solid phase velocity magnitude decreases from the throat to the belly of the furnace for the studied conditions. However, after belly the velocity magnitude increases.

A mathematical model based on the continuum mechanic concept has been developed to describe the profile of solid particles in an industrial scale blast furnace with respect to the in-furnace conditions and its characteristics such as the shape and size of the deadman. The Navier-Stokes differential equation for multi-phase multi-dimensional space has been used to describe the behavior of existing phases. The surface stress tensor has been defined as an extra term and added to the Navier-Stokes equation to describe the particle-particle interactions. This extra term in the Navier-Stokes equation behave as a breaking force when the particles are sliding down. It is shown that the particles change their profile from a V-shape to a W-shape due to the characteristics of the deadman. Moreover, the velocity magnitude is higher at the outer surface of the deadman for higher grid-slabs in this region than the near-wall cells. However, the situation changes as solid particles moving to even lower level of grid-slabs at the outer surface of the deadman in comparison to near-wall cells. It has also been shown that an increase in the magnitude of the effective pressure reduces the velocity magnitude of descending particles.