Practice for Extending Blast Furnace Campaign Life at Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation

One of the problems encountered in 60＇s to 80＇s of 20th century in China＇s steel industry was short life of blast furnace shaft as well as the excessive erosion of blast furnace hearth. A series of research work was carried out in order to extend blast furnace campaign life. The concept of research and development was integrated in the construction of BF （blast furnace） No. 5 at WISCO （Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation）, and in October, 1991, the BF No. 5 was blown in. The blast furnace has worked smoothly for more than 15 years without any medium repair even guniting. It is expected that the campaign life of BF No. 5 would be longer than 16 years with a production over 11 000 t per unit inner volume （m^2）. A new blast furnace with an inner volume of 3 400 m^3 is under construction, and is designed with a campaign life of 20 years without any medium repair. The campaign life of blast furnaces in China has been extended in recent years.

Microstructure Features with Ultrafined and Purified Grains for Si-Mn Hot-rolling TRIP Steel

The advanced hot-rolled transformation induced plasticity （TRIP） steel with high tensile strength of 775 MPa, high elongation of 29% and low ductile-brittle transmission temperature less than -80℃ has been developed in laboratory based on the common silicon and manganese chemical composition. The experimental results showed that the microstructures were featured with ultra fine grain size less than 5μm, appropriate retained austenite volume fraction around 11.8% and purified ferrite grain, which may result in well balanced mechanical properties for the steel.

Effect of hot rolling on the microstructure and impact absorbed energy of the strip steel by CSP

The microstructures and impact absorbed energies at various temperatures were investigated for steel strips hot rolled to thickness reductions of 95.5%, 96.0%, 96.5%, 97.0%, and 97.5%. Results indicate that grain refinement can be realized with an increase in hot rolling reduction. Besides, finer precipitates can be achieved with an increase in hot rolling reduction from 95.5%to 97.0%. The impact absorbed energy decreases with a decrease in testing temperature for steel strips hot rolled to 95.5%, 96.0%, and 96.5%reductions in thickness. However, in the case of steel strips hot rolled to 97.0%and 97.5%reductions in thickness, the impact absorbed energy remained almost constant with a decrease in testing temperature.

Experimental and clinical study of influence of high-frequency electric surgical knives on healing of abdominal incision

AIM： To study the influence of high-frequency electric surgical knives on healing of abdominal incision. METHODS： Two hundred and forty white rats were divided into 10^0, 10^2, 10^5, and 10^8 groups and rat models of abdominal operation were induced by using electric surgical knives and common lancets respectively. Then they were respectively given hypodermic injections of normal saline and 0.2 mL quantitative mixture of Escherichia coil, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudornonas aeruginosa at a concentration of 10^2, 10^5 and 10^8. On the basis of the animal experiment, 220 patients undergoing abdominal operations （above type Ⅱ） were randomly allocated into one of following three groups： electric knife （EK, 93 cases）, electro-coagulation （EC, 55 cases） and control （72 cases）. High-frequency electric surgical knives were used to dissect abdominal tissues and electro-coagulation for hemostasis in EK group. Common lancets and electro-coagulation were applied in EC group. Common lancets and tieing silk suture were used in the controls. RESULTS： In all the groups except group 10^0, infection rate of incisional wounds made by electric surgical knives were remarkably higher than that with common lancets. Furthermore, there were significant differences in groups 10^2, 10^5, and 10^8 （P 〈 0.05）, but not in group 10^0 （P 〉 0.05） between EK and EC groups. Clinical studies showed a delayed wound healing in 16 cases （17.20%） in EK, 11 cases （16.36%） in EC and 2 cases （2.86%）in the control groups. A significant difference between EK and the control groups （χ^2= 8.57, P 〈 0.01）, and between EC and the control groups （χ^2 = 5.66, P 〈 0.05） was observed, but not between EK and EC （χ^2= 0.017, P 〉 0.05）. CONCLUSION： High-frequency electric knives may remarkably delay abdominal incision healing. Its application should be minimized so as to reduce the possibility of postoperative complications.

Grate-kiln pelletization of Indian hematite fines and its industrial practice

Indian hematite fines normally have a high iron grade and minor impurities; they are usually used as sinter fines for feeding into a blast furnace. In this work, the grindability properties of two kinds of Indian hematite fines and the roasting behaviors and induration characteristics of pellets made from these fines were revealed through experiments involving dry ball milling and small-scale and pilot-scale tests. In addition, the microstructures of the particles of ground India hematite fines and fired pellets were investigated using optical microscopy. On the basis of the results, a grate-kiln production line with an annual output of 1.2 Mt of oxidized pellets was established in India. This pellet plant operates stably and reliably, further confirming that preparing high-quality pellets with Indian hematite fines pretreated by dry ball milling is an industrially feasible process. © 2017, University of Science and Technology Beijing and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Microstructure and Wear Behavior of Ti-6Al-4V Treated by Plasma Zr-alloying and Plasma Nitriding

A duplex treatment of plasma Zr-alloying and plasma nitriding was used to improve the tribological properties of Ti-6Al-4V. The microstructure of the Zr-N composite（alloyed） layer formed on Ti-6Al-4V and its hardness, friction and wear properties were investigated by using OM, SEM, GDOES, EDS, microhardness tester as well as ball-on-disk tribometer. The results of microstructural analysis show that the alloyed layer is compact and uniform and is mainly composed of ZrN, TiN_（0.3） and AlN. A very tiny adhesive and slight oxidation wear is the primary wear mechanism for the modified Ti-6Al-4V. The tribological property is improved significantly after the duplex treatment. The good combination of antifriction and wear resistance for modified Ti-6Al-4V is mainly attributed to the higher surface hardness of metal nitrides formed on the surface and enhanced supporting of the Zr-diffusing layer.

Warm Compaction Process of P/M Steels by Orthogonal Testing Method

In order to achieve higher density of P/M steels using the die wall lubrication compacting method or powder lubricant in warm compaction process, the influence of different process parameters on the green density of warm compacted samples was studied. According to the orthogonal test method, the authors systematically study the influence of the different compaction pressure, condition of lubrication and compaction temperature on the green density of the sample in the warm compaction process, and put forward the optimal process parameter of warm compaction experiment. It is found that, a high compaction pressure （≥700 MPa）, die wall lubrication combined with a small amount of internal lubricants, and fitting compaction temperature by different condition of lubrication, are the optimal parameters in warm compaction process.

Effect of nano-sized precipitates on the crystallography of ferrite in high-strength strip steel

For strip steel with the thickness of 1.6 ram, the yield and tensile strengths as high as 760 and 850 MPa, respectively, were achieved using the compact strip production technology. Precipitates in the steel were characterized by scanning and transmission electron microscopy to elucidate the strengthening mechanism. In addition, intragranular misorientation, Kernel average misorientafion, and stored energy were measured using electron backscatter diffraction for crystallographic analysis of ferrite grains containing precipitates and their neighbors without precipitates. It is found that precipitates in specimens primarily consist of TiC and Ti4CzS2. Ferrite grains containing pre- cipitates exhibit the high Taylor factor as well as the crystallographic orientations with {012}, {011}, {112}, or {221} plane parallel to the rolling plane. Compared with the intragranular orientation of adjoining grains, the intragranular misorientation of grains containing precipi- tates fluctuates more frequently and more mildly as a function of distance. Moreover, the precipitates can induce ferrite grains to store a rela- tively large amount of energy. These results suggest that a correlation exists between precipitation in ferrite grains and grain crystallographic properties.

Prognostic significance of cell infiltrations of immunosurveillance in colorectal cancer

AIM: To determine whether the mast cell (MCs) and tumor-associated macrophage (TAMs) counts have any correlation with clinical outcome in colorectal cancer, and to investigate whether MCs undergo phenotypic changes in colorectal cancer.METHODS: The MC and TAM counts were determined immunohistochemically in 60 patients with colorectal cancer and the depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis rate, distant metastasis rates, and survival rates were compared between patients with low (less than the mean number of positive cells) and high (more than the mean number of positive cells) cell counts.RESULTS: Both patients with a low MC count and patients with a low TAM count had significantly deeper depth of invasion than those with a high MC count and those with a high TAM count (P＜0.01 and P＜0.01 respectively).Patients with a high MC count and patients with a high TAM count were significantly higher showing significantly lower rates of lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis than those with a low MC count and those with a low TAM count. There were significant positive correlation between MC counts and TAM counts (r = 0.852, P＜0.01).In both cancerous tissue and normal colorectal tissue,the predominant MC phenotype was MCTC. The 5-year survival rate estimated was significantly lower in both patients with a low MC count and patients with a low TAM count than in those with a high MC count and those with a high TAM count (P＜0.05 and P＜0.01 respectively).CONCLUSION: There appears to be a direct relationship between the number of MCs and clinical outcome in patients with colorectal cancer, even though MCs exhibited no significant phenotypic changes. TAM count is of value to predict the clinical outcome or prognosis. It is more beneficial for estimating biological character of colorectal carcinoma to combine MC and TAM counts.

Visualization of 3-D temperature distribution in a 300 MW twin-furnace coal-fired boiler

Until now, it has been difficult to obtain on-line three-dimensional (3-D) temperature distribution information which can reflect the overall combustion condition in the furnace of a coal-fired power plant boiler. A combustion monitoring system is introduced which can solve the problem efficiently. Through this system, the 3-D temperature distribution in a coal-fired boiler furnace can be obtained using a novel flame image processing technique. Briefly, we first outline the visualization principle. Then, the hardware and software design of the system in a 300 MW twin-furnace coal-fired boiler are introduced in detail. The visualization of the 3-D temperature distribution in the twin-furnace boiler is realized with an industrial computer and the Distributed Control System (DCS) of the boiler. The practical operation of the system shows that it can provide valuable combustion information of a furnace and is useful for the combustion diagnosis and adjustment in coal-fired power plants.

Point-of-Interest Recommendation in LocationBased Social Networks with Personalized Geo-Social Influence

Point-of-interest(POI) recommendation is a popular topic on location-based social networks(LBSNs).Geographical proximity,known as a unique feature of LBSNs,significantly affects user check-in behavior.However,most of prior studies characterize the geographical influence based on a universal or personalized distribution of geographic distance,leading to unsatisfactory recommendation results.In this paper,the personalized geographical influence in a two-dimensional geographical space is modeled using the data field method,and we propose a semi-supervised probabilistic model based on a factor graph model to integrate different factors such as the geographical influence.Moreover,a distributed learning algorithm is used to scale up our method to large-scale data sets.Experimental results based on the data sets from Foursquare and Gowalla show that our method outperforms other competing POI recommendation techniques.

Effect of Richardson number on entropy generation over backward facing step

The flow over a backward facing step （BFS） has been taken as a useful proto- type to investigate intrinsic mechanisms of separated flow with heat transfer. However, to date, the open literature on the effect of Richardson number on entropy generation over the BFS is absent yet, although the flow pattern and heat transfer characteristic both will receive significant influence caused by the variation of Richardson number in many prac- tical applications, such as in microelectromechanical systems and aerocrafts. The effect of Richardson number on entropy generation in the BFS flow is reported in this paper for the first time. The entropy generation analysis is conducted through numerically solving the entropy generation equation. The velocity and temperature, which are the inputs of the entropy generation equation, are evaluated by the lattice Boltzmann method. It is found that the distributions of local entropy generation number and Bejan number are significantly influenced by the variation of Richardson number. The total entropy gen- eration number is a monotonic decreasing function of Richardson number, whereas the average Bejan number is a monotonic increasing function of Richardson number.

Silicon Pick-up of Interstitial-Free Steel From MgO-SiC Refractories

The silicon pick-up of interstitial-free steel （IF steel） from resin bonded MgO-SiC refractories is studied via a medium frequency induction furnace. Samples of IF steel were heated in MgO-SiC crucibles with mould flux cover at 1 600 ℃ for 180 min. The silicon contents of IF steel samples taken from the molten steel in every 30 min were examined and the refractories after heating were investigated by electron probe microanalysis （EPMA） with energy dispersive spectrometer （EDS）. The silicon content of steel rapidly increased in the first 90 min of beating, and then decreased because of the formation of liquid layer on the refractory. Liquid layer separated the liquid steel from the bulk refractory and stopped the pick-up of silicon. At the same time, desilication via oxygen through the liquid layer and flux started to reduce the silicon content of the liquid steel

An Online Self-Adapting Control Approach for Bell Annealers

A suit of online self-adapting control （OSAC） approach has been developed to predict and optimize annealing craft system. The approach consists of three critical parts including prediction module, self-adapting optimization module, and self-learning amendment module. Firstly, the prediction module and self- adapting optimization module are based on the modeling methods. The self-adapting optimization module consists of two parts including ＂reappearance of annealed process＂ and ＂optimization of subsequent annealing process＂. Secondly, the self-learning amendment module, based on furnace atmosphere, equipment performance, and compensation coefficients, is designed to improve the accuracy of optimization results. The results obtained from the proposed approach, usually finished in about 3 min, are in good agreement with the test values, such as the deviation of temperature for hot-spot and cold-spot are within 10 K, the relative errors are within 1.1%, and the accuracy of annealing for heating period is increased by using self-learning amendment module.