Influence of Alumina on Iron Ore Sinter Properties and Productivity in the Conventional and Selective Granulation Sintering Process

Iron ore sinter constitutes a major proportion of blast furnace burden. Hence, its quality and consistency have a significant impact on blast furnace performance. Iron ore fines are the main source for sinter, and the chemical composition of the iron ore fines, together with the thermal conditions that blends are subjected to, plays an important role in forming the primary melt during the sintering process and accordingly determines the sinter structure and quality. Therefore, considerable importance has been placed on the chemical composition and consistency of iron ore fines, particularly in terms of alumina content. Due to depletion of high grade iron ore resources, alumina content in the iron ore fines is expected to increase gradually. Ore with higher alumina content is usually expected to be detrimental in forming the sinter matrix, if sintered alone, due to the low reactivity of alumina bearing minerals and the high viscosity of primary melts. The selective granulation process is a new sintering process for high alumina iron ore fines, and can eliminate the adverse effects of ‘hard to sinter’ or ‘unsuitable – for ironmaking’ ores. In the present work laboratory sintering experiments have been carried out with iron ore fines of different alumina level (2.00 to 5.46 mass‐%) to know the influence of alumina on mineralogy, productivity, physical and metallurgical properties of sinter prepared by the conventional and the selective granulation process. With increasing alumina content in sinter of both the conventional and selective granulation process, the fractions of hematite and of silico‐ferrites of calcium and alumina (SFCA) as well as the pore phase increased whereas the magnetite and silicate phases decreased. With increase in alumina content sinter productivity and tumbler index (T.I.) decreased, and metallurgical properties like sinter RDI and reducibility improved. However, sinter of the selective granulation process showed better results compared to the conventional process.     

Effect of Iron Ore Pellet Size on its Properties and Microstructure

The properties of the pellets and their microstructure mainly depend on the raw material mix proportion, raw material chemical composition and the physicochemical conditions like the temperature and oxygen partial pressure within the induration machine. The pelletising plant products are in the size range of 8 to 16 mm. With increasing pellet size, the sintering intensity, thermo‐chemical conditions and formation of different phases vary across its cross section. The time required for varies reactions within the pellet is directly proportional to the pellet size. Because of differences in pellet size, the reduction and oxidation process takes place under different conditions resulting in different phases and microstructures. In this work, detailed studies were carried out on pellets of different size (8 to 16 mm) produced from a 4.2 Mtpa pellet plant for their physical, metallurgical and microstructural properties. It was observed that the pellets in the size range of +8 to ‐12 mm showed good strength and lower RDI. It was observed that the amount of hematite, magnetite, porosity, pore density, pore size and slag phase play a significant role on pellet strength and RDI.     

Effect of tanniniferous Terminalia chebula extract on rumen biohydrogenation, ∆(9)-desaturase activity, CLA content and fatty acid composition in longissimus dorsi muscle of kids

Conjugated linoleic acid, a fatty acid found in milk fat and ruminant meat is one of the functional food components. Modifying fatty acid composition so as to increase CLA and other beneficial PUFA/MUFA level and reducing SFA levels might be a key to enhance the neutraceutical and therapeutic value of ruminant-derived food products. In the present experiment, the effect of supplementation of polyphenol rich Terminalia chebula plant extract at different concentrations (1.06 g/kg and 3.18 g/kg of body weight in T1 and T2 groups, respectively) was investigated on fatty acid composition of rumen fluid, plasma, intramuscular fat and Δ9-desaturase activity in longissimus dorsi muscle of crossbred kids. Total MUFA and PUFA content in muscle were enhanced by 25 and 35%, respectively, whereas SFA was reduced by 20% thereby improving the desaturation index. Δ9-desaturase activity also increased by 47% resulting in an enhancement of total CLA content (58.73%) in muscle.     

Do housing costs impact on poverty in rural areas?

Abstract

This research examines evidence for whether housing costs are more likely to be associated with poverty in rural than in urban Scotland. It reports the results from probit modelling of British Household Panel Survey data from 1999 to 2008. Empirical work is set in the context of understandings of factors associated with poverty, defined on an income basis, and specific features associated with rural locations. Attention is drawn to the way in which rurality is defined and that definition operationalized. The finding from the multivariate analysis is that a household’s housing costs do not appear to have a different association with its propensity to experience poverty in rural as opposed to urban Scotland. The paper sets out conclusions in the recognition of possible limitations and identifies ways in which the evidence can be extended.     

Automatically Assessing MPEG Coding Fidelity

As the market and number of products for multimedia applications grow, the need for testing methods and fidelity metrics becomes critical. Testing devices are important for the development and evaluation of multimedia products. This article describes a testing method and prototype that can be used for assessing MPEG coding fidelity     

A Review on Precision Agriculture Using Wireless Sensor Networks Incorporating Energy Forecast Techniques

Wireless Personal Communications - Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are prominently used for environment monitoring, however, energy constraints limit their applications. So, the energy consumption...     

Granularity-based workflow scheduling algorithm for cloud computing

The workflow scheduling problem has drawn a lot of attention in the research community. This paper presents a workflow scheduling algorithm, called granularity score scheduling (GSS), which is based on the granularity of the tasks in a given workflow. The main objectives of GSS are to minimize the makespan and maximize the average virtual machine utilization. The algorithm consists of three phases, namely B-level calculation, score adjustment and task ranking and scheduling. We simulate the proposed algorithm using various benchmark scientific workflow applications, i.e., Cybershake, Epigenomic, Inspiral and Montage. The simulation results are compared with two well-known existing workflow scheduling algorithms, namely heterogeneous earliest finish time and performance effective task scheduling, which are also applied in cloud computing environment. Based on the simulation results, the proposed algorithm remarkably demonstrates its performance in terms of makespan and average virtual machine utilization.