CIVS-Purdue Continue Developing IVBF Casting Rate Sensor through Onsite Data Collection

On November 28th, 2023, CIVS staff members Tyamo Okosun, Associate Director for Research and Kyle Toth, Senior Research Engineer along with Purdue West Lafayette Professor Jun Chen and Post-Doctoral Researcher Weixiao Shang, completed a site visit to U. S. Steel Gary Works #14 Blast Furnace, hosted by Kosta Leontaras, Process Engineer and Jason Entwistle, Head of Blast Furnace Technology.

The visit included a meeting to review the current status of the physics-based reduced order models for the #14 blast furnace developed in the DOE-supported IVBF project. The meeting also provided a forum for feedback from U. S. Steel personnel on the user interface for the IVBF software, which is currently under development.

The goal of the visit was to complete a recording session to test calibrated measurement techniques for predicting flow rate at the blast furnace tap hole using the IVBF casting rate sensor developed by Professor Jun Chen and the project team members at Purdue West Lafayette.

A full casing session was successfully recorded with the imaging sensor, from drilling into the closing of the tap hole with the mud gun. Results will be analyzed to refine the sensor toward the first industrially installed prototype at U. S. Steel. Feedback on the IVBF user interface will be incorporated into the software for deployment at the end of this, the second of three project performance periods.

U. S. Steel, a charter member of the Steel Manufacturing Simulation and Visualization Consortium (SMSVC), has been a critical partner in the IVBF project, providing a testbed and deployment site for all elements of the research. CIVS recently welcomed David Bormet, Director of Product Quality Development of U. S. Steel, as a new SMSVC Board Member serving as the representative for U. S. Steel. He is also a Purdue Northwest Alumni and has over 30 years of experience in the steel industry.