A cooling system for a metallurgical furnace includes a plurality of cooling arrangements having each a set of cooling elements arranged to extract heat from the furnace, the cooling elements having each at least one internal cooling channel for a coolant fluid, where the cooling elements are fluidly connected within each cooling arrangement; at least one discharge piping associated with each cooling arrangement for discharging the coolant fluid towards a main collector, where a flow regulating arrangement is serially mounted with the discharge piping and configured to control a flow rate of the coolant fluid therethrough and hence through the cooling arrangement, where the flow regulating arrangement includes a calibrated orifice defining a default, minimal flow cross section for the coolant fluid and a regulating valve selectively operable to define a variable, additional flow cross-section.

A blast furnace control system may include a hardware processor that generates a deep learning based predictive model for forecasting hot metal temperature, where the actual measured HMT data is only available sparsely, and for example, measured at irregular interval of time. HMT data points may be imputed by interpolating the HMT measurement data. HMT gradients are computed and a model is generated to learn a relationship between state variables and the HTM gradients. HMT may be forecasted for a time point, in which no measured HMT data is available. The forecasted HMT may be transmitted to a controller coupled to a blast furnace, to trigger a control action to control a manufacturing process occurring in the blast furnace.

A blast furnace control system may include a hardware processor that generates a deep learning based predictive model for forecasting hot metal temperature, where the actual measured HMT data is only available sparsely, and for example, measured at irregular interval of time. HMT data points may be imputed by interpolating the HMT measurement data. HMT gradients are computed and a model is generated to learn a relationship between state variables and the HTM gradients. HMT may be forecasted for a time point, in which no measured HMT data is available. The forecasted HMT may be transmitted to a controller coupled to a blast furnace, to trigger a control action to control a manufacturing process occurring in the blast furnace.

Controlling circumferential variability in a blast furnace may include generating a predictive model that sets up a relationship between a standard deviation of a selected state variable, state variables and one or more control variables in blast furnace operation for predicting the standard deviation. A number of circumferential sections of the blast furnace is defined, and the predictive model associated with the selected state variable for each of the circumferential sections is trained based on process data of the blast furnace. A plurality trained predictive models is generated associated with different circumferential sections and different selected state variables. One or more future control variable set points that minimize a sum of the plurality of predictive models, is determined. One or more future control variable set points is transmitted to a control system to control the blast furnace operation.

Controlling circumferential variability in a blast furnace may include generating a predictive model that sets up a relationship between a standard deviation of a selected state variable, state variables and one or more control variables in blast furnace operation for predicting the standard deviation. A number of circumferential sections of the blast furnace is defined, and the predictive model associated with the selected state variable for each of the circumferential sections is trained based on process data of the blast furnace. A plurality trained predictive models is generated associated with different circumferential sections and different selected state variables. One or more future control variable set points that minimize a sum of the plurality of predictive models, is determined. One or more future control variable set points is transmitted to a control system to control the blast furnace operation.

A method of manufacturing a steel product into at least two different steelmaking units wherein an expected level of CO2 emissions for the manufacturing of said product in each respective steelmaking unit is calculated.

A method to manufacture a steel product in a steelmaking plant including several different tools, the method including the definition of at least two manufacturing routes using different tools and the calculation of the expected level of CO2 emissions associated to each of this defined manufacturing routes.

A method to manufacture a global tonnage of steel products in at least two steelmaking units wherein expected level emissions are calculated and compared with pre-defined targets.

A metal agglomerate production configuration including an induration apparatus configured to provide a metal oxide material manufacturing thermal process (MTE) including indurating a metal ore material into a metal oxide material and a method of production of metal agglomerates. A cooler device is configured for cooling the metal oxide material discharged from the induration apparatus and includes a first heat transferring arrangement configured for transferring a first heat energy content (HE) to the induration apparatus, which first heat energy content (HE) is recovered from the metal oxide material holding the thermal energy (TE). The configuration includes a second heat transferring arrangement configured for transferring a second heat energy content (HE) from the induration apparatus to the cooler device for cooling of the metal oxide material, which second heat energy content (HE) is recovered from the metal oxide material manufacturing thermal process (MTE).

A supply heat amount estimating method for estimating an amount of heat supplied to pig iron in a blast furnace from an amount of heat supplied into the blast furnace and a rate of production of molten pig iron in the blast furnace, the supply heat amount estimating method includes: estimating a change in carried-out sensible heat by an in-furnace passing gas and a change in carried-in sensible heat supplied by a raw material preheated by the in-furnace passing gas and estimating the amount of heat supplied to the pig iron in the blast furnace in consideration of the estimated changes in the carried-out sensible heat and the carried-in sensible heat.