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Towards More Sustainable Steelmaking

Transforming Steelmaking Operations with Simulation

The steelmaking industry is facing a range of challenges with the need to improve energy efficiency and to reduce carbon emissions while maintaining steel quality. 

To work towards decarbonization and the development of next-generation blast furnaces and processes, steel companies worldwide are partnering with Altair to access the latest simulation technologies and transform their steelmaking operations.

Bulk and granular materials such as iron ore, coal, pellets and sinter are at the core of the steelmaking process and efficient handling and processing of those materials is critical to achieve efficiency. Altair® EDEM™ software enables steel companies to analyze the flow and behavior of materials through each segment of their equipment and operation. This provides them with unique insight into their operations and enables them to improve the design of devices such as charging systems and to optimize key processes.

Check the resources below to find out more about EDEM simulation software and its applications and discover how ArcelorMittal, Paul Wurth and other leading steel companies use this technology to improve steel quality, energy efficiency and blast furnace performance.

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Discover the Future of Steelmaking

Take your iron & steelmaking processes to the next level. Join our free webinar on June 6th at 9 AM CEST and learn how to optimize transportation, raw material handling, mineral processing, blast furnace and sintering. Discover how to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and increase output while maintaining steel quality and reducing carbon emissions. Register now and revolutionize your steelmaking operations.

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Key Applications

 

Blast Furnace & Sintering

By including EDEM simulations in their R&D activities, researchers and engineers are able to virtually examine the operation of charging devices and to optimize the blast furnace loading process.

• Visualize burden flow
• Optimize materials distribution and dispersal
• Investigate cause and minimize segregation in the loading process
• Predict areas of excessive equipment wear

EDEM can also be coupled with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to simulate solid-gas flows and develop complex and realistic models of the cohesive zone and processes such as iron smelting.

In addition, EDEM can be used to optimize sinter charging and discharging at different stages of the process.

• Optimize cooling efficiency of existing equipment​
• Predict segregation​
• Analyze material flow and behavior of coarse and fine material in the system​
• Validate and check analytical models
• Reduce full scale testing cost
 

Transportation and Raw Material Handling

EDEM can be used to evaluate and verify the design performance of conveyor transfer chutes and transfer points.

• Prevent blockage, spillage and wear of chutes, hoppers and belts when transporting material towards the blast furnace
• Find ideal setup to get the best material flow rate, without failure
• Cope with variation in the feedstock (sintered iron ore, iron ore pellets, coking coal, additives)
• Design the retro-fit of several existing conveyors & transfer chutes to handle new material (iron ore pellets)
• Prevent degradation of sinter ore
 

Mineral Processing

Breakage, Vibration, Drying, Mixing, Agglomeration

EDEM is used to simulate and understand material flow behavior for a range of operations and processes involving machines such as mixers, crushers, ball mills, vibrating screens, briquette presses, and more. Example of analysis include:

• Optimize machine / process efficiency
• Identify areas prone to wear
• Predict the effects of mill geometry, ore characteristics, and operating conditions on grinding efficiency, mill yield, and power demand
• Assess segregation levels
• Measure mixing efficiency
• Evaluate pellets strength

CUSTOMER STORY

Made of Steel - ArcelorMittal Optimized Sinter Cooler Charging System

Find out how ArcelorMittal used Altair EDEM software to simulate and analyze the granular flows in the charging chute of a sinter cooler plant and it how it helped them improve the reliability and efficiency of this device.

READ CASE STUDY
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Customer Presentations

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Simulation of Segregation in Blast Furnace Plant – FIFO Evaluation


Learn how Paul Wurth used Discrete Element Method (DEM) simulations coupled with a FIFO evaluation to increase their knowledge of the important factors influencing the segregation and improve the design of the complete material handling.

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Some Usages of EDEM Software at ArcelorMittal R&D (1)


In this presentation two use cases are discussed:
• how to predict wear to help increasing equipment lifespan
• how to design a sinter-cooler charging chute to optimize segregation patterns

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Some Usages of EDEM Software at ArcelorMittal R&D (2)


In this presentation two use cases are discussed:
• how to set up a predictive model of the sinter charging process in which segregation takes place
• how to simulate a pilot scale blast furnace raceway with only coke particles using EDEM and CFD

WATCH PRESENTATION

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