Master project: Combustion & heat transfer modelling in regenerative heat exchangers (hot blast stoves in steel industry)

Type: Master project

Period: 2019 – spring/summer

Project directors: Prof. François Maréchal (IPESE-EPFL)

Assistants: Ivan Kantor, Hür Bütün

Project team: Akshay Bansal (ArcelorMittal R&D)

Related project: EPOS

Background

Steelmaking is a resource intensive industry. Different ways of saving energy and material in our plants are being studied and implemented inside ArcelorMittal. As in all efficiency approaches, we first optimize our processes, then reuse residual energy/waste inside our processes as much as possible but also consider options outside the plant. A hot blast stove battery is responsible for providing hot air to the blast furnace and constitutes up to 15% of the total energy consumption of the blast furnace. We are therefore interested in improvement of thermal efficiency through combustion and heat transfer modelling of the governing phenomena.

Project description

The objective of the training period is to model the combustion and heat transfer in a hot stove.

  • Literature survey:
    • Understand regenerative heat exchangers
    • Previous experimental and modelling techniques
  • Build a heat transfer model of the checker-work zone of a hot stove
  • Build a combustion model of the combustion zone of a hot stove
  • Coupling of the above models
  • Heat balance through diagnostics of real hot stove operation data

Desired skills

  • Process and Energy engineering, with a specialization in fluid dynamics, heat transfer and combustion
  • CFD (ANSYS Fluent)
  • Programming skills (Python, UDF – C for ANSYS Fluent)
  • Data analysis
  • Excellent communication and listening skills
  • Able to treat a large number of information
  • Dynamic, persistent, working autonomously and taking initiative Strong leadership and interpersonal skills, team player
  • Highly involved and motivated

Work structure

The trainee will be based on Research & Development Maizières Process site. The trainee will work in close collaboration with the Process Energy team, part of Process Engineering Department in the main R&D centre of ArcelorMittal (Maizières-lès-Metz).

How to apply

If interested, please take contact with Akshay Bansal [email protected] attaching your CV, Cover Letter and transcript of records (Bachelor’s and Master’s).