Le niveau de charbon est un paramètreprocess important pour la productivité et legraphitage des fours de la batterie.La mesure des hauteurs de chargementest nécessaire pour ajuster les paramètresde l’enfourneuse. La méthode manuelle avecune pige graduée n’est plus acceptable pourl’environnement et les conditionsde travail des opérateurs.Chaque enfourneuse de Dunkerqueest équipée de quatre radars qui permettentdes mesures répétitives en automatiqueavec une précision du millimètre.Malgré les conditions difficiles (chaleur,poussière, gaz…), le radar embarquépermet d’obtenir des mesures fiables.

The development of steel refining operations at ArcelorMittalFCWE for the production of ULS steels is reported. Several plants with different equipments produce grades with S <30 ppm, thus permitting to identify the most efficient process, from hot metal desulfurization to secondary metallurgy. For sites producing steels with S <30 ppm, four secondary metallurgy routes coexist in ArcelorMittal FCWE. The Vacuum Tank Degasser makes it possible to reach very low S and N contents simultaneously. To face the increase of the share of Ultra Low Sulfur products, it is necessary to further enhance the kinetics of desulfurization by steel - slag stirring at the atmospheric pressure.

Quality and production of sinter is essential for an appropriateoperation of the blast furnace. A model for the prediction of theburn through point in sintering process is developed in orderto improve the stability of the process. Speed strand, air flowthrough the bed, raw material rates and real thermocouples temperaturesare considered as input variables. The sinter bed is splitinto portions and a set of differential equations (mass and heatbalances) are established in order to obtain a good estimationof the gas temperature at the wind boxes. These temperaturesare compared with the actual measurements and entered into themodel to achieve a typical modern filtered scheme.

The automotive is a sector where energy consumption during theuse phase prevails over the production and the end-of-life phase.Therefore, a lot of research and innovations have aimed atreplacing classical steel parts by lighter materials like light alloysand polymer composites. While composites are very attractivefor the use phase of cars, their introduction suffers from the limitedend-of-life options for composite structures. Due to the restrictionsimposed by the European ELV directive, the use of non-recyclablecomposite components in car manufacturing is not obvious.
An extensive life cycle analysis for a reference car design wasconducted to study the effects of replacement of conventionalsteel structures by lightweight carbon fibre composite alternatives.The study also takes second order effects in the design of the carinto account, such as the required motor power. The obtainedresults show the trend towards more intensive use of carbonfibrecomposites in car design desires some nuancing, and theopportunities and threats are identified.

La parution d’un nouvel ouvrage (1)de Gilbert Etienne, très intéressant commetoujours, nous amène, sans évidemmentvouloir refaire notre étude de 1990 (2),à faire le point de cette comparaisontoujours pour le domaine de la sidérurgie,près de vingt années plus tard.

The XXIV IMPC (International Mineral Processing Congress)which took place in Beijing from September 23 to 28, 2008gave an opportunity to see the important development in IronOre processing worldwide, especially in China. This reviewpaper presents:A brief history of the IMPC Congresses as well as the scopeof this XXIV IMPC in Beijing;The development of the Iron Ore demand and supply of theChinese Iron and Steel Industry and the consequences on IronOre imports;The impressive expansion of the Iron Ore mining andprocessing in China.

The ULCOS blast furnace process aims at reducing theCO2 emission of the blast furnace by 50% in two steps:
Decrease of carbon consumption by recyclingmost of the top gas after CO2 removal, which requiresoperating the blast furnace with pure oxygen;
Underground storage of CO2.
The first stage is essential to demonstrate the feasibility of thisnew process. It has been tested over a 6 week campaign atthe LKAB experimental BF in Luleå. The facility was adaptedspecifically for the trials (including the erection of a VPSAplant). Different operating conditions were investigated.In conclusion, and taking into account underground storage,the CO2 emission at the blast furnace was reduced by upto 76%. For the steelmaking plant, this should result in anet CO2-savings of 65% at the level of the hot rolled coil.