Industry -Research-Academia Synergy : An Overview of Industry Aided Collaborative Research in Steelmaking at IIT Kanpur

摘要

More than a dozen different steel and refractory manufacturers in the country have tied up with the Process and Steel Research Laboratory, IIT Kanpur for innovation, process up-gradation and improvement as well as continuing education activities. In the recent past, several research projects concerning primarily with steel quality and productivity were undertaken with many industrial partners. From among these, a set of four, industrially relevant, problems is discussed in this work. Selected examples include:1. Reduction in tap to tap time in an energy optimizing steelmaking furnace (EOF),2. Modeling and optimization of industrial argon rinsing practice,3. Reduction of tundish skull from slab and bloom caster tundish, and4. Submerged entry nozzle (SEN) design for continuous casting of wider section slabs.Physical and mathematical modeling were applied to investigate the problems and evolve appropriate operating strategy leading to better process performance. In some cases, results obtained from model study program have been implemented in shop floor. Plant scale trials have confirmed significant process performance improvement with attendant economic benefits. These are discussed briefly in the text. Keywords: academia-industry synergy; physical and mathematical modeling; plant scale trials; EOF; ladle metallurgy; tundish metallurgy and continuous casting