A response to the perspective 'Sustainability of ferrous metallurgy and the steel industry' by David Naylor (I&S, 2005, 32, (2), 97-100) Dr Naylor rightly points out that the decline in the number of students taking up materials science and metallurgy as a career option (at least as a first choice) may become a threat to the sustainability of the steel industry. While agreeing wholeheartedly with his general observations, Dr Naylor's comment that this malady does not ail the steel industry in India is not totally correct. The Indian steel industry is also struggling to recruit sufficient high calibre graduates and postgraduates with the knowledge and skills required to meet its needs. In some ways this is even more disturbing, since the Indian steel industry, unlike those of Europe, the USA and Japan, is on the upswing and has yet to reach maturity. India is a country with relative abundance of high grade iron ore; unfortunately, not matched by adequate reserves of the fossil fuels/natural gas required for its reduction. India's steel production is today about 34 Mt while per capita consumption is only 28-30 kg, as opposed to the 400-600 kg typical of a nation undergoing full development and 150-200 kg for sustainability in mature economies. At the same time, there is no doubt that India has been globally recognised as a twenty-first century nation, a nation that is emerging, along with China, as a centre of all-round economic growth. To fulfil its potential, India must become a fully developed nation by 2020. Since steel is central to development, plans are afoot to increase India's annual steel production to 110 if not 120 Mt/year, by that date. Most Indian steelmakers (Sail, Tata Steel, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam, Essar Steel, the Ispat Group, and private players such as Jindal and Bhushan) have already announced ambitious plans for expansion -work on some of which has begun. Concurrently, international steel players (Mittal, Posco, Arcelor, Bluescope and others), responding to the anticipated burgeoning demand for steel, have entered or are on the verge of entering the Indian market. Given this background and given the abundance of iron ore in India coupled with some coking/noncoking coal, as well as the possibility of natural gas (offshore natural gas in the Arabian Sea and in the Bay of Bengal as well as talk of the Iranian gas pipeline coming into India), it is clear that if a proper strategy is adopted, raw materials need not be a constraining factor for the Indian steel industry. In the worst case, raw materials can be imported (Posco is suggesting this strategy; coking coal is imported by most Indian steel plants even today). However, it is clear, at least to some, that the availability of a suitably trained workforce (a requirement that cannot be met from external sources) could become a major issue. It would be a case of 'steel plants, steel plants everywhere, and no one to run them'. Mr B. Muthuraman, the present Managing Director of Tata Steel, as well as the Chairman of the Ferrous Division of the India...

Room temperature model studies using water to simulate 'metal' and paraffin oil (when required) as 'slag' were conducted to study the extent of mixing and the rate of mass transfer between metal and slag in the 130 t basic oxygen furnaces (BOFs) in operation in Tata Steel. Several systems of gas injection including top blowing, combined blowing and exclusive bottom purging were investigated. Similar work was undertaken in a room temperature model of an 80 t energy optimising furnace (EOF), in operation for a brief period earlier in Tata Steel. Details of the optimum blowing conditions, including the number/distribution of bottom tuyeres for the BOFs, are elaborated in the present paper. How mixing/mass transfer in an EOF compares with the BOF case(s) is also highlighted.

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The objective of this study was to understand the effect of 1 – 2 % titania on the high‐temperature properties of blast furnace slags containing high alumina and magnesium oxide. The viscosity and liquidus temperature of semi‐synthetic blast furnace slags were measured using a viscometer and a hot stage microscope, respectively, and the data were used to develop a statistical model for predicting the liquidus temperature and viscosity of blast furnace slags. Samples of the titanium bearing accretions were collected during tearing‐out of the hearths of Tata Steel's blown‐out D and E blast furnaces. They were subjected to various physico‐chemical analyses (e.g. chemical, XRD, optical microscopy, SEM and image analysis) in order to understand the mechanism of hearth protection. In the range of composition studied, the liquidus temperature is found to lie between 1365 to 1430°C and the viscosity, between 0.30 to 0.60 Pa · s. Increase in titania fluidizes the slag and also makes it easy‐melting. The titanium bearing compounds in the slag show traces of TiC, TiN, Ti2N, TiO, Ti2O3, Ti3O5 and Ti5O9. A mechanism of formation of these precipitates is proposed in this paper.

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