Modeling and Simulation of Metallurgical Processes in Ironmaking and Steelmaking

Dear Colleagues,

The UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement, and the European Green Deal, among other goals, all aim to improve the sustainability of industrial production and to reduce CO₂ emissions. Europe, for example, aims to reach carbon neutrality and a circular economy by 2050. This goal cannot be achieved without the ironmaking and steelmaking industries.

To reach this goal, further process optimizations with regard to energy and resource efficiency, as well as the development of new processes or process routes, are needed. However, the parameters necessary for the analysis and optimization of the existing and new metallurgical processes in ironmaking and steelmaking often cannot be measured directly because of the harsh conditions inside the furnaces and metallurgical vessels.

Typically, the direct information sources in ironmaking and steelmaking are off-gas analysis and spot measurements, for which a delay for the analysis of the sample must be reserved. Owing to the harsh environment, possibilities to determine the flow conditions in the vessels by measurements are even more limited.

While new methods for the direct and continuous measurement of some of these parameters are currently under development, for many processes they are not available at this time. Furthermore, plant trials that would be necessary to evaluate the impact of different optimization strategies may be impossible because of the prohibitive cost or safety concerns in many cases.

Modeling and simulation have thus established themselves as an invaluable source of information regarding otherwise unknown process parameters, and as an alternative to plant trials with a lower associated cost, risk, and duration. Models are also applicable for model-based control of metallurgical processes.

In this Special Issue on “Modeling and Simulation of Metallurgical Processes in Ironmaking and Steelmaking”, we aim to collect regular and review articles to showcase the recent advances in the modeling and simulation of unit processes in ironmaking and steelmaking, while considering the latest experimental results and process operational data. We also encourage studies that examine the integration of process models to simulate process chains.

Dr. Thomas Echterhof
Prof. Ko-Ichiro Ohno
Dr. Ville-Valtteri Visuri
Guest Editors

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