On February 18-19, CIVS Senior Research Engineer Kyle Toth was invited to the AIST Safety and Health Technology Committee (SHTC) / Cranes Committee (CTC) meeting in Mobile, Alabama. This joint session covered committee activities, AISTech 2025 planning, and discussions on safety in crane operations. Kyle is currently the sitting Vice Chair of the SHTC.

Collaboration and discussion between the safety committee and other AIST committees is being seen as a good way to dive into specific topics or concerns in the ironmaking and steelmaking industry, and there are ways to try and evaluate and create some general guidelines or suggestions from safety professionals about how to make processes generally safer.

Cranes and mobile equipment make up a large portion of incidents tracked by AIST, so collaborations like this meeting are especially important, for member companies that are producers, and vendors, to try and understand what the problems are, and how to approach them.

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On February 25-26, CIVS Graduate Research Assistant & Ph.D. student Dianzhi Meng was invited to present at the AIST Continuous Casting Technology Committee Spring Meeting in Louisville, KY. Approximately 30 people attended the meeting. There were 6 talks, 5 of which were student presentations to industry professionals. Attendees also toured Nucor Brandenburg’s new casting shop.

The presentation was titled “CFD Modeling of Twin-Slab Caster”. Co-authors include CIVS Graduate Research Assistant Sai Bhuvanesh Nandipati, CIVS Associate Director for Operations Armin Silaen, U.S. Steel Senior Casting Process Engineer Rudolf Moravec, and CIVS Director Chenn Zhou.

The SEN of twin-slab caster is off-centered, which exhibits widthwise asymmetry, influencing heat transfer and solidification. This study employs Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations to investigate the effects of this asymmetry on temperature distribution and shell formation for slabs with different widths. A three-dimensional model is established, with solidification modeled using the enthalpy-porosity approach. The thermal boundaries is treated separately—the mold employs the Savage-Prichard heat flux model, whereas the slab cooling is defined using an HTC correlation based on real nozzle configurations. Results show that the temperature difference between loose and fixed sides exceeds 250°C, with the maximum value observed near the slab’s inner corner. Shell thickness and metallurgical length are directly linked to mold heat flux. Additionally, wider slabs demonstrate greater asymmetry. These findings provide insights into optimizing secondary cooling strategies to reduce thermal asymmetry and improve solidification uniformity in twin-slab casting.

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On Friday, February 21, CIVS welcomed Joe Morey of Morey Industrial Consulting, to give a seminar to over 40 CIVS staff, students, and PNW College of Engineering students and faculty. Joe’s presentation was very well received and was followed by a productive Q&A. His presentation was titled “Do Better Things! – What we all can do to help in the difficult steel transition”.

The talk focused on what we can do now to improve our most carbon intensive assets; our blast furnaces, cutting carbon while we are also cutting costs to set an international example. As the effects of global warming become more apparent, the push to decarbonize will gain more and more traction globally. Businesses are working to manage this along with the many other drivers that create value for customers. This is no different for the steel industry who is working to juggle these new demands.

Joe Morey has nearly 30 years in the steelmaking industry with over 28 years at US Steel. Joe has international experience in coke making, sintering, blast furnace, and oxygen steelmaking. He pairs these experiences with a strong lean manufacturing background with a focus on eliminating waste to improve the business. Joe is a current board member for the Association of Iron and Steel Technology and is very active in the Ironmaking and Decarbonization Technical Committees. Joe is the owner of Morey Industrial Consulting that focuses on ironmaking technologies while improving steelmaking through the elimination of waste.

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Congratulations to CIVS Associate Director for Research, Dr. Tyamo Okosun, for being an awardee of Purdue University’s Researcher Recognition Program for Fiscal Year 2025. He was awarded as the Principal Investigator for $7.2 million Doe-Er-conservation & Renewable Energy, “Technical Development and Industrial Demonstration of Net-Zero Carbon EAF Steelmaking with Alternative Injection and Stirring Technologies”.

In January 2023, the Office of Research launched the Researcher Recognition Program to award $50,000 in discretionary funds to Principal Investigators of new, multi-year research awards.

Click to read the full news release.

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Congratulations to CIVS Graduate Research Assistant, Xipeng Guo, on successfully passing his Ph.D. dissertation exam on February 5 at Purdue University West Lafayette.

His research is entitled “Modeling of Flow Field, Inclusion Removal, Arc Heating and Hot Metal Desulfurization in the Gas Stirred Ladle” under supervision of CIVS Director Dr. Chenn Zhou, who is Professor by Courtesy at Purdue University’s School of Mechanical Engineering.

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How Digital Twin Technology — and a Virtual Blast Furnace — Are Helping to Bridge the Manufacturing Skills Gap

CIVS research was recently featured on MxD (Manufacturing x Digital) website with an article titled “How Digital Twin Technology — and a Virtual Blast Furnace — Are Helping to Bridge the Manufacturing Skills Gap”. The article is focused on blast furnace research, more specifically the Integrated Virtual Blast Furnace (IVBF). CIVS Director Chenn Zhou was interviewed about the next-generation physics-based, data-driven, interactive, Integrated virtual blast furnace simulators, which has evolved from more than 20 years of blast furnace research at PNW. With U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funding, the CIVS team is using the IVBF to find methods to improve steelmaking efficiency and develop a virtual training model to provide critically needed workforce development within the steel industry. The IVBF mirrors a blast furnace, enabling an unprecedented interior view and providing an example of how manufacturing is embracing digital twin technology. Touted for its transformative impact on quality, agility, and competitiveness, digital twin technology is also helping to bridge the gap between a shrinking skilled workforce and the increasing complexity of modern manufacturing processes.

Read the full article here.

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On December 10-18, CIVS Director Chenn Zhou was invited to visit Taiwan for the activities below:

• A keynote presentation on “Reducing Carbon Emissions for Blast Furnace through Advanced Digital technologies” at the International Conference on Low Carbon Emission Technologies for Blast Furnace Ironmaking Process in Tainan
• Presentations and discussions on “CFD Modeling of Electric Arc Furnace for Process Optimization” and “Blast Furnace Simulation and Visualization” at China Steel Corporation (CSC) in Gaohsiung
• A seminar on “CFD Simulation and Visualization for Steelmaking” at the College of Engineering in National Taiwan University (NTU) in Taipei.

During the trip, potential collaboration opportunities for research and student exchanges were discussed.  Dr. Chenn Zhou was very impressed by the decarbonization research activities and roadmaps in Taiwan.  She appreciated the warm hospitality from the organizers of the conference, as well as the hosts from CSC and NTU.  Her special thanks go to Dr. Shih-kang Lin from the National Cheng Kung University and Dr. Te-Cheng Su from National Taiwan University.

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Congratulations to Armin Silaen (CIVS Associate Director for Operations) and John “Jack” Moreland (CIVS Senior Research Scientist) on being winners in the DOE IEDO Framing the Future: Industrial Technologies Photo Contest. The contest features photos of the innovative technologies, processes, and people that will increase competitiveness of the U.S. industrial base and strengthen America’s economy. There was a total of 125 entries and 18 photos were selected across 6 different categories. Click here to read the full article.

Armin received Runner-Up and Honorable Mention for 2 photos in the Energy Intensive Industries Iron and Steel category and Jack received Runner-Up in the People and Communities of the Industrial Sector category.

Thanks to U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) IEDO for this wonderful opportunity and great support!

“These photos capture the essence of innovation and collaboration needed to transform our industrial sector and increase U.S. competitiveness abroad,” said IEDO Director Avi Shultz “Through the lenses of these talented photographers, we see not just technologies and processes, but the people driving the change toward a sustainable, prosperous future.”

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On September 11, CIVS students met virtually with representatives from the Association of Iron & Steel Technology (AIST). The purpose of the virtual visit was to learn more about AIST such as scholarship opportunities and student programs. They were also joined virtually by a previous scholarship winner and industry young professional member to talk about his experiences with AIST and working in the steel industry. Students were given resources to get more involved with AIST as well as engaging in Q&A with those leading the virtual tour.

CIVS is a member of the AIST Midwest Chapter. The Midwest Member Chapter is the largest AIST member chapter with more than 1,600 members, and includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Northern Indiana and a small portion of Northwestern Illinois. Students in CIVS are also members of the Materials Advantage Club and receive benefits from four prestigious materials societies: ASM International, ACerS, AIST and TMS.

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On October 4, CIVS welcomed Dr. Charles Christoffer and George Takahashi from Purdue’s West Lafayette campus to be guest speakers at the weekly CIVS Seminar held in the CIVS Immersive Theater. Charles is a Senior Computational Scientist and George is a Lead Visualization Scientist at Purdue. Attendees included CIVS students and staff and PNW College of Engineering students and staff.

Their seminar topic was High Performance Computing and focused on GPU computing and resources at Purdue. Computational modeling has revolutionized how research is conducted and has driven the development of ever faster and more advanced computers. Purdue maintains a world class research computing center, the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing housing 6 computing clusters with over 267,000 CPU cores and 500 enterprise grade GPUs. Researchers are able to purchase access to these resources without the need to house and maintain their own computing clusters.

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