CFD Analysis of Hotmetal Desulfurization Process for Improved Mixing in a Torpedo Vessel

CFD Analysis of Hotmetal Desulfurization Process for Improved Mixing in a Torpedo Vessel

Mentor(s): Chenn Zhou, Bin Wu, and Armin Silaen

Graduate

Oral Presentation

A torpedo car is an elongated cylindrical vessel, which is widely used in steel plants to transfer liquid iron from the blast furnace to the melt shop and perform desulfurization process. Removing the sulfur contained in pig iron is very important to meet the stringent quality criteria required in the downstream processes. The desulfurization process is performed in a torpedo vessel during the transportation by injecting desulfurizing reagents into the liquid iron with nitrogen as the carrier gas. An optimization of this process is desired to improve the desulfurization efficiency. In this study, a 3-D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model has been developed to analyze the flow field in the liquid iron bath inside a torpedo vessel. Parametric studies were conducted to assess the opportunities to improve the efficiency of the desulfurization process.

Rails Production Logistics Study

Mentor(s): Chenn Zhou, Bin Wu, and Armin Silaen

Graduate

Oral Presentation

Due to the growth of Steel Dynamics Company (SDI) operations, the outbound shipment of rails needs to be increased to meet the requirements of customers. Therefore, SDI is considering optimizing its production line (logistics) to maximize the shipment capability of the system. The main problems are focused on how to decrease/eliminate any blockage in the rails production line, and increase the work efficiency of each station. To solve this problem, a tool to ensure optimization of production system is developed, which can be applied in most of factory. Specifically, a simulation of the production system is built, based on the real factory, to better understand the operating condition of the production system. Based on the system simulation, statistical analysis is carried out to determine the bottleneck in the system. Finally, optimization techniques are used to propose an optimization plan, which could enable clear planning for the growth of the company.

Tuyere Failure Analysis through Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation

Mentor(s): Chenn Zhou, Bin Wu, and Tyamo Okosun

Graduate

Oral Presentation

A blast furnace tuyere is used to inject heated air (fuel-air mixture in many cases) into the furnace. Throughout the operational life of a blast furnace, tuyere failure will occur. Considerable research has been conducted on tuyere designs in order to minimize failures and extend operational life. The research completed in this project used computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling to simulate the thermal properties of a tuyere during normal operating conditions. Variables that may affect tuyere performance were investigated, including the properties of cooling water and coating emissivity. Research is conducted on an updated tuyere geometry containing both a body and nose water channel. The overall behavior of the tuyere cooling process was simulated, including flow behavior in both channels and temperature distributions on both the inner and outer surfaces of the tuyere. Additionally, the thermal effects of protective materials were simulated.

Underground Pipeline Failure

Mentor(s): Chenn Zhou, Chandramouli Viswanathan, and John Moreland

Graduate

Oral Presentation

There are pipelines which carries crude oil running underground in northern Indiana. It’s important to evaluate the safety issue of these pipelines. When the pipeline has a leak, the crude oil will burst out and will flow underground. The underground water flow will affect the distribution of the crude oil. Since everything is underground, it’s difficult to probe and to do experiment, and the results to predict large scale real situation won’t be very accurate based on small scale experiment. Therefore we developed numerical method to simulate the scenarios. By applying scientific computation, visualization software GroundWater Vistas, ParaView, 3Ds Max and Unity 3D, we can provide an application that can provide an accurate and vivid view of various scenarios. There are six scenarios and each of the scenarios will have 6 models which represent the contaminant distribution from 1 month to 6 months.

Virtual Wind Turbine Simulator

Mentor(s): Chenn Zhou and John Moreland

Graduate

Oral Presentation

Virtual wind turbine simulator is developed for undergraduate & graduate students in Mechanical Engineering to learn introductory concepts of wind turbine components. The existing learning method is less interesting and the issue of transferring learned concept to practical applications is a widespread question in education. The simulator will assist with identifying the main components in nacelle, knowing the names and locations of the main components and understand the relationship between the input shaft, gearbox and output shaft. The outlook and inner structure will be shown in three-dimensional models so it will be more easily to make clear each small part of wind turbine. This simulator will be developed by using 3ds Max and Unity 3D. Students can use mouse and keyboard to operate just like a real game. Using technology and innovate a new interactive method in training area instead of traditional teaching is extremely more impressive.

Optimization of Water Usage in Evaporative Cooling Assisted Air-conditioning Systems

Mentor(s): George Nnanna

Graduate

Oral Presentation

Air-conditioning systems are designed to provide thermal comfort in our homes. The condensers of our air-conditioning systems are typically air-cooled. During summer, the high temperature of the ambient air causes an increase in condensing temperature, condenser pressure and hence compressor work, leading to an increase in electrical power consumption, and reduction in the cooling capacity of the cycle due to the reduction of the liquid content in the evaporator, in other words, a decrease in the coefficient of performance (COP) of the system.

The goal of this research work is to provide a means of reducing the overall cost of running air-conditioning systems, by evaporative precooling of the air flowing over the condenser coils.

Evaporative or adiabatic cooling exploits water high latent heat of vaporization to achieve a drop in temperature of hot air that flows through a media pad placed in the way of the air flowing over the condenser coils. During evaporative cooling, the energy needed to evaporate the water is absorbed from the incoming hot air in the form of sensible heat and converted to latent heat present in the water vapor component of the air. The air temperature drops while its moisture content is increased. Fortunately, this air only cools the condenser and doesn’t get into the conditioned space, in other words, the humidity of the conditioned space is not compromised. Many researchers over the years have investigated the efficiency of employing evaporative cooling at the condenser of air-conditioning system with little concern for the optimization of water usage in the application of evaporative cooling. In addition, to our knowledge, no work has been done to determine the quality of water needed to ensure the evaporative cooling process is effective. This is an important study since water is a scarce and expensive resource in some areas. This paper presents an experimental investigation of the optimization of water usage in air-conditioning systems retrofitted with evaporative condensers and the dependence of the COP enhancement on the water distribution network. An evaporative cooling unit was located upstream from the condenser. / Preliminary analysis suggest that the geometry, location of the spray manifold and the diameter of its orifice affect the COP and hence the cooling capacity of an air-conditioning system.

Additionally, the effect of water quality characteristics such as turbidity and salinity have been carried out.