Search Documents

By Jian Li, S. Penttila, W. Zheng

"Materials selection for Gen IV supercritical water reactor in-core components faces major challenges due to severe operating condition. Beside high-temperature mechanical properties, SCC and general corrosion resistance of commercially available materials are also major focuses in recent research. Recent reports suggest that certain types of surface modifications are beneficial to SCW corrosion resistance. In this study, the effects of surface modifications are investigated, and possible mechanisms for improved corrosion performance are discussed.IntroductionThe current Canadian pressure-tube supercritical water reactor (SCW) design specifies a core outlet temperature of 625°C under 25 MPa of pressure, with peak cladding temperature as high as 850°C. Challenges in materials selection include high-temperature mechanical properties, corrosion resistance, SCC resistance and radiation damage. Most of the SCW corrosion test results available are below 730°C. Early work by Allen [1] summarized the corrosion resistance of alloy groups including Ni-based super alloys, stainless and ferritic/matensitic (F/M) steels that can potentially be used for SCW reactors. F/M steels can only be used at low temperature sites (e.g. down stream piping). At 500°C and 25 MPa, F/M steels develop a thick but mechanically stable oxide layer. However, the long term stability of the surface oxide layer is largely unknown. Ni-based alloys appear to form very thin surface oxide, however pitting was observed in the vicinity of some intermetallic precipitates [2-5], and dissolution of major alloying components could pose significant problems for down stream piping [6]. In addition, concerns of Helium formation due to Ni transmutation prevented this alloy group to be used as fuel cladding. The corrosion resistant austenitic stainless steels (e.g. 316L) are found to be susceptible to localized corrosion such as pitting, intergranular attack and stress corrosion cracking (SCC) [7]."

Jan 1, 2012

By Takashi Miyamoto, Hideo Nakae, Hideki Yamaura, Takeshi Yanagihara

"For the production of partially composed metal matrix composites, namely discontinuous MMCs, using a casting· process, the interpenetrated phase composites with SiC particles were fabricated by pressureless iDfiltration using molten Al-Si alloys. This process is based on a wetting phenomenon, therefore, we discussed the technique based on the reactive wetting. The SiC particles coated by diluted water glass were sintered in a mullite Tammann tube and simultaneously infiltrated with molten Al-Si alloys in air at 1173~1573K. As for the improvement of the wettability between the SiC and the liquid aluminum alloy, Fe3O 4 powder was mixed with the water glass due to the thermit reaction between Fe3O4 and molten aluminum alloy. In some experiments, pure aluminum powder was placed on the sintered SiC to increase the interfacial area and the chemical reaction between the sintered Sic. and the melt. By combining these conditions, we succeeded in the complete infiltration without pressure at 1173K.IntroductionAs is well known, the mechanical properties of metal matrix composites (abbreviated MMCs) are superior than that of ordinary metals. However, their use has not been widely accepted because the production cost is very high due to their poor machinability. Therefore, the production of partially composed, namely discontinuous MMCs, by as the Lanxide process [l,2] has been investigated for many years. The Lanxide process, it takes a long time, sometimes up to 10h, in a nitrogen atmosphere for the infiltration. Therefore, the cost will be higher for common use. On the other hand, a high 'pressure process has been adopted for the production of discontinuous MMCs by the Toyota Motor Corp.[3]."

Jan 1, 2000

By L. L. Ludwig, S. E. James, B. L. Motycka

Significant modifications to the electrolytic zinc plant operated by Big River Zinc Corporation were made at the end of the 1990's resulting in increased capacity and improved efficiencies. A new cell room, with the innovative use of acid-resistant concrete cells and a modern ventilation system, was installed to raise the capacity from 80,000 tonne/y to 106,000 tonne/y of finished zinc. Improvements to the leaching section include the conversion from a single to a two-step process, with associated equipment changes, to improve the quality of the residues produced. Another key change is the construction of a facility to allow the use of zinc oxides from secondary sources as a feed to the plant. This paper describes these improvements and the current operations.

Jan 1, 2000

By Jacqueline JAlexander

Two of the most important phenomena which govern the continuous casting process and determine the quality of the product are the fluid flow and the heat transfer. Steel flows into the mold through the ports of a bifurcated submerged entry nozzle (SEN), which directs the jet to the mold narrow faces where the superheat contained is dissipated on the solidifying shell. Many important aspects of the fluid flow in the mold are transient and difficult to control. However, the time-averaged flow pattern in the mold is greatly influenced by the nozzle geometry, the submergence depth and the mold dimensions. The aim of this work is to analyze the relationship between the heat transfer and the fluid flow pattern inside the mold using the CFD technique at several operating conditions.

Jan 1, 2009

By E. Munnik

The Chambishi Metals Cobalt Plant in Zambia has recently installed a novel oxidation/precipitation pressure leach process as part of the COSAC (Cobalt from Slag and Copper as by-product) Project. An iron-cobalt-copper alloy, produced by the carbothermic reduction of slag, is atomized and pumped to the COSAC Leach Plant, where cobalt and copper are recovered as dissolved sulphate salts, and iron is rejected primarily as hematite. Cobalt and copper are subsequently recovered as cathode metal in the existing Chambishi operation by conventional electrowinning. This paper examines the challenges faced during the design and subsequent successful commissioning of the COSAC Leach Plant.

Jan 1, 2003

By D. W. Collins

The uptake of gold from halide solutions by activated carbon has been investigated using various techniques. Halide systems typically exhibit combined adsorption-reduction type behavior. In an attempt to gain more information about the nature of these processes, samples of synthetic highly-oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) were contacted with aqueous solutions of gold-iodide. HOPG represents a model structure for activated carbon comprising of basal- plane sites, edge sites, and various defect sites. Two basic instrumental methods were used to examine the uptake of gold by HOPG. The first was standard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The other involved several scanning probe techniques. XPS clearly indicated a preferred uptake of gold at edge sites. However, iodine appeared to be distributed on both basal-plane and edge sites. At low iodine additions, tapping mode AFM showed that clusters were concentrated along steps and surface defects. At high iodine concentrations, the HOPG surface was uniformly covered by iodine.

Jan 1, 1998

By Baohua Li, Yanhui Liu, Shengping Li, Xuewei Lv, Yun Chen

There are almost ten billion tons of vanadium-bearing titanomagnetite in Panzhihua-Xichang area. However, iron ores in Hongge, which has the most abundant reserves in the four mine areas in Panzhihua, have not been utilized sufficiently so far. The reason behind this is the relatively high Cr2O3 in the ores (0.49 %~0.82 %), that due to its high melting temperature will negatively influence the blast furnace reduction and slagging process. Therefore, in the blast furnace process, Cr is hope to be reduced into molten iron, which can reduce slag viscosity problems. Slag iron reduction experiments were conducted to quantify the Cr reduction. Experimental results shows that with the increase of TiO2, the content of Cr in the hot metal is decreased when balanced. And during the initial stage of the reduction reaction, the reaction kinetic model is a first-order reaction.

Jan 1, 2016

By Cui Wang, Qian Li, Kexin Jiao, Haibin Zuo, Jianliang Zhang

Abstract：A rational cooling water system is the assurance for long campaign life of blast furnace．In the paper, the heat transfer of different furnace period and different furnace condition based on the water quality characteristics were analysed, and the reason of the heat flux over the normal from the hydrodynamics was analysed. The results showed that, the vapour-film and scale existence significantly influenced the hearth heat transfer, which accelerated the brick lining erosion. The water dynamic characteristics of the parallel inner pipe or among the pipes were the main reason for the abnormal heat flux and film boiling. As to the reasonable cooling water flow, the gas film and the scale should be controlled and the energy saving should be considered.

Jan 1, 2015

By P. Louis

Gécamines is the world largest cobalt producer with about 60 % of the Western World production. During the last ten years, its annual production varied from 5,400 to 14,600 t/year. The actual cobalt production capacity of Gécarnines is 18,000 t/year and could be increased in the near future if necessary. Cobalt is presently produced at the Shituru plant by an old in-pulp electrolysis process and in Luilu, by electrolysis of a clear weakly acidic solution. The Shituru Cobalt quality is lower than the Luilu one. For that reason, part of the Shituru Cobalt is fire refined and cast into granules. Large efforts have been succesfully accomplished to improve the cobalt quality. This has been made possible by a better knowledge of the purification processes and of the electrolysis parameters.

Jan 1, 1988

By R. Togashi, S. Kuramochi, T. Yamada

In 1972, the Akita Zinc Co., Ltd. commenced operations with an annual capacity of 86,000 tonnes of electrolytic zinc, and it has operated with an annual capacity of 156,000 t-Zn since 1974. The business surroundings for non-ferrous metals production have become more severe with the high Yen rate for the dollar and low domestic demand in the last few years. Consequently, the company tried to survive with some improvements and succeeded to reduce operating costs and to improve profitability as follows: 1) expansion of its production capacity to. 196,000 t-Zn annually, 2) saving man-power by the introduction of fully-automated machines for cathode handling in the cellhouse, 3) improvement of the hematite process by means of the recovery of rare-metals. These improvements made Akita Zinc a competitive refinery in the modern world. We have been trying to improve the operations more and more. One of the challenges is to purify the iron oxide made in the hematite process by applying an As removal process, which is coming into operation in the near future.

Jan 1, 2000

By T. Nakamura

TiO2 and Ti/TiO2 thin films were deposited on a quartz substrate by laser ablation of TiO2 and Ti targets using Nd:YAG pulsed laser. After sulfurization of the TiO2 film in H2S or CS2 gas at 1273 K for I hour, the surface atomic structure was changed. Furthermore, the Tirri02 film was successfully prepared by the subsequent ablation of Ti and Ti02 targets. The morphology and structure of the films were characterized by XRD, XPS and AFM analyses.

Jan 1, 2003

TiO2 and Ti/TiO2 thin films were deposited on a quartz substrate by laser ablation of Ti02 and Ti targets using Nd:YAG pulsed laser. After sulfurization of the Ti02 film in H2S or CS2 gas at 1273 K for 1 hour, the surface atomic structure was changed. Furthermore, the Ti/TiO2 film was successfully prepared by the subsequent ablation of Ti and TiO2 targets. The morphology and structure of the films were characterized by XRD, XPS and AFM analyses.

Jan 1, 2003

By A. V. Tarasov

Technology has been developed for production of elemental sulphur from off-gas from autogenous smelting processes based on reduction of sulphur dioxide with natural gas with subsequent treatment of reduced gas containing hydrogen sulfide by the Klaus method. This technology has been applied on a commercial scale at the copper smelter of the Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Complex for treatment of off-gas from the Vanyukov smelting process (PV). In the course of further improvement of the technology a catalytic version of the process has been developed based on the use of a catalyst at the reduction stage, which permits a decrease in the natural gas requirement by 25% to 30%.

Jan 1, 2006

By Martin Fischer

A new method for the quantitative image analysis of complex microstructures in steel is presented. Microstructures in modern steel grades on the one hand become more and more complex while on the other hand the size of the constituents is scaled down ever further. For these reasons it is increasingly difficult or even impossible to access reliable quantitative information on ratios, shapes and spatial distributions of individual phases and constituents by utilising traditional metallographic analysis methods. The presented new analysis approach is object-based. Its basic processing units are so-called ?image objects? which reflect the pictured structures by merged groups of likely related pixels. By the use of image objects, information on shape, graphical texture and spatial distribution of the microstructural constituents can be processed. With these additional data available, it is possible to quantitatively analyse complex microstructures. This is demonstrated by the application of the method to SEM images of different multiphase steel grades. Because the analysis routine is fully automated, the analysis of large amounts of image data is possible and thereby the investigation of statistically relevant areas of microstructures.

Jan 1, 2009

By B. Ozturk, K. Ito, R. J. Fruehan

"A simulation model for bath smelting processes for the production of iron was developed which predicts the coal, flux, ore, and oxygen consumptions and the off gas volume, temperature and composition. The model is comprehensive in that it takes into account all of the important variables including coal composition, metal composition, ore composition, slag basicity, post combustion ratio, (PCR), prereduction degree (PRO), heat transfer coefficient (HTC) , flux, scrap charge, and heat losses. Four basic cases were considered: I. 30% PRO-50% PCR; II. 90% PRO-O% PCR; III. 60% PRO-30% PCR; and IV. 0% PRO-50% PCR. Several different coals were considered and a sensitivity analysis of the critical variables was performed. The model also estimates the sulfur content of the metal. The major conclusions included:1. Post combustion significantly reduces coal consumption but above 20% PCR little reduction of FeO to Fe can be performed with the off gas.2. Prereducing to FeO (Case I) and having as much post combustion as consistent with good heat transfer is an attractive process. This process only requires a simple pre reducer, uses less coal, and is relatively insensitive to the type of coal used.3. High off gas temperatures may pose a potential problem. The off gas temperature can be reduced by using an 02-Air mixture for post combustion, limiting post combustion or adding water to the gas.4. The use of CaC03 in place of CaO or of supplemental electricity does not appear attractive.5. The melting unit is theoretically an energy efficient scrap melter. For Case I using 200 kg of scrap as part of the charge the coal consumption decreases by about 80 kg.6. With PCR > 30% the FeO content of the slag is expected to be 2-5%, and the metal will not be saturated with carbon. These factors and the increased sulfur load since coal is the fuel indicate the sulfur content of the metal may exceed 0.25%"

Jan 1, 1988

By L. M. . Chia

The successful treatment of waste materials to recover metals with acceptable purity is often hampered by the presence of undesirable impurities. The problem is further complicated by the need to insure that any residues or solutions generated are environmentally acceptable. Hydrometallurgical processes involving leaching- solvent extraction-electrowinning offer some attractive features which address many of these problems. However, in certain instances trace impurities that contaminate the organics are difficult to chemically strip and interfere with the overall process efficiency. A new processing scheme has been developed which appears to provide some attractive alternatives for impurity removal from organics. It has been shown that many ionic impurities can be electrochemically removed from the organic by spontaneous direct reduction using solid metals. A variety of metal ion impurities have been removed from selected common organic extractants such as D2EHPA and TBP using different metals as the reducing agents. The results and probable mechanisms involved in the reactions are discussed.

Jan 1, 1994

By Yuanbo Zhang, Daoyuan Zhang, Youlian Zhou, Guanghui Li, Tao Jiang

"Modified humic acid (MHA) has been developed by Central South University (CSU) and authorized in China. It has been reported that MHA is an effective binder for oxidized pellets prepared from specularite concentrates. In this research, effects of MHA binder on roasting behaviors of the specularite pellets are studied. MHA is an organic binder, containing much carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, etc. During the roasting, MHA can provide some heat because of combustion of hydrocarbon, which is beneficial for the recrystallization of Fe2O3 in the specularite pellets at high temperature. Simultaneously, part of hematite particles within the pellets are firstly reduced to magnetite, then, magnetite is oxidized into secondary hematite, which obviously improves the roasting performance of specularite pellets.IntroductionOxidized pellets have been widely used in steel production as a kind of high quality burden for blast furnace ironmaking [1]. In recent years, production of oxidized pellets is developing very fast. Therefore, the supply of high quality magnetite concentrates, which is the most suitable for pellet production, becomes scarce. It is imperative to pursue new alternative materials for oxidized pellet production [2]. Specularite concentrates have attracted widespread attention due to the advantages of high total Fe grade and low impurity content. However, due to the poor ballability and firing performance, specularite has not yet been widely applied into pellet production [3, 4]."

Jan 1, 2012

By Susumu Okabe

Mitsubishi Continuous Copper Converter employs the top blowing lance system for the continuous supply of reaction gases into the molten bath. In order to avoid the excessive refractory wear caused by the melt splash without loss of the reaction efficiency, the furnace design and the blowing condition should be optimized. Empirical equations which correlate the splashing rate on the' side wall with the dimensions of the furnace, lance position, lance size, gas velocity and bath properties were obtained by by the physical model study, and compiled into a computer program. The computer program is effectively utilized for the analysis of the actual operation and for the optimum design of new furnaces.

Jan 1, 1998

By Michael E. Stout

The recovery of the constituent components of spent lead acid batteries was pioneered in the early 1970's by M.A. Industries, Inc. MA's main reason for research and development in this area was to recover the polypropylene casings for use as feed stock in their injection molding plants. At that time spent and reject casings were either disposed of or being fed with the lead 'bearing materials into the ,smelting process. M.A. has since developed, built and operated plant for the conversion of scrap casing into reusable copolymer resins. The system is composed, of washing, .sizing, extrusion and pelletizing the polymer into a form which is ready to be injection molded into new products.

Jan 1, 1995

By H. Palkowski

Recent trends in the automotive industry lead to increasing interest in advanced high strength steels (AHSS). Those steels often have a high bake hardening potential (BH), giving additional contribution to the strength of structural parts, subjected to the paint baking process. For hot rolled AHSS, namely dual phase and martensitic steels, the effect of process conditions on mechanical properties had been investigated. However, the influence of chemical composition within the range in industrial production has not been investigated sufficiently yet. In the current research, samples with different chemical compositions within the characteristic interval for industrial production are under investigation under different preload conditions and simulating the thermo-mechanical production process. The samples were then subjected to BH process. Tensile tests were performed to study the influence of varying chemical composition on the BH effect. The results of investigations on dual phase steels will be presented in this paper.

Jan 1, 2008