CIVS Showcases Steel Research at AISTech 2025

On May 5-7, 17 CIVS staff and students delivered various technical presentations at the AISTech 2025 Conference in Nashville, TN, which is the major Annual International Iron & Steel Technology Conference and Exposition. The CIVS presentations included 13 technical presentations, 3 undergraduate oral presentations, and 14 graduate poster presentations in the topics of blast furnace, DRI, electric arc furnace, ladle, reheating furnace, casting and safety.

CIVS staff and students received various awards:

1. Ty Okosun, CIVS Associate Director for Research, received the AIST J.E. Johnson Jr. Award;
2. CIVS Blast Furnace research received the 2025 AIST Josef S. Kapitan Award – Ironmaking for the paper titled “The Integrated Virtual Blast Furnace: Enabling Physics-Based Operational Guidance.”;
3. CIVS Graduate Research Assistant Hossein Alimohammadi received 3^rd place at the AISTech Graduate Poster Competition. His poster was titled “Enabling Blast Furnace Coke Replacement with Superheated Hydrogen Tuyere Injection”.  The contest provides students the opportunity to present their research in a forum for all conference attendees to view; and
4. CIVS was selected as a recipient of an AISTech Material Advantage Chapter Travel Grant.

The following is a list of CIVS presentations:

Undergraduate Presentations:

• Jacob Schulman – “CFD Modeling of Oxygen Jet Impingement on Molten Steel during EAF Refining”
• Priscilla Ndukaife & Yao Huang – “Design of Diluted Combustion for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction”
• Fengyuan Liu – “Development of Hardware Controls for Use in Simulation Control”

Graduate Poster Competition:

• Kiranchandru Lingeswaran – “Optimization of Mixing and Inclusion Removal Efficiency in Oval-shaped Ladles”
• Sai Bhuvanesh Nandipati – “Impact of Argon Injection in Continuous Casting”
• Sathvika Kottapalli – “Impact of Varied Oxygen Injection on Refining”
• Abhishek Kolakotla – “Numerical Investigation of H2/CH4 Flameless Combustion in a Steel Reheating Furnace”
• Sohail Hannure – “Impact of Hydrogen Usage on NOx Emissions in Reheat Furnaces Using CFD Modeling”
• Mohammadhossein Alimohammadi – “Enabling Lower Emission Blast Furnace Operation with Superheated Reducing Gas Injection”
• Abdul Mateen Mohammed – “Computational Study of Iron Ore Fines Reduction with Microwave-Generated Hydrogen Plasma”
• Shiyu Wang – “Numerical Investigation of Arc Power Impact on the Melting Process in an Electric Arc Furnace”
• Nihal Saji – “Numerical Investigation of Mixing Efficiency and Mixing Time in Industrial-Scale RH Degasser and Optimization Through Operational Parameters”
• Omer Raza – “Development of a Hearth Erosion and Free Volume Model for an Industrial Blast Furnace”
• Qingyun Pu – “Enhanced Hazard Recognition Scenario Builder: Expanding Customizable Virtual and VR Safety Training”
• Dhwanil Chauhan – “Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Accident Investigation: Improving Safety Reporting with LLMs”
• Jay Polra – “Enhancing Real-Time Workplace Safety in Industrial Environments through Advanced Computer Vision”
• Preshita Jaiswal – “The Integrated Virtual Blast Furnace: A User Interface for Process Optimization Reduced Order Models”

Technical Presentations:

• Jack Moreland, CIVS Senior Research Scientist – “Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Accident Investigation: Improving Safety Reporting With LLMs”
• KC Lingeswaran, CIVS Graduate Research Assistant – “Impact of Impeller Wear on Slag-Iron Flow and Desulfurization in Kanbara Reactors”
• Kyle Toth, CIVS Senior Research Engineer – “Crane Monitoring for Meltshop Safety: A Collaborative Study on Load Detection and Position Tracking”
• Shiyu Wang, CIVS Graduate Research Assistant – “Scrap Melting in DC-EAF Operations Using CFD Simulations”
• Sam Nielson, CIVS Research Engineer – “Development of a DRI Furnace Model Using Computational Fluid Dynamics”
• Jack Moreland, CIVS Senior Research Scientist – “Effective Training Solutions for New Crane Operators”
• Veronica Pitt-Payne, CIVS Undergraduate Research Assistant – “CFD-Based Investigation of Hydrogen Fuel Blending for Flameless Combustion in Steel Reheating Furnaces”
• Orlando Ugarte, CIVS Research Engineer – “On the Influence of Charge Layering on HBI/Scrap Melting in an Industrial EAF”
• Armin Silaen, CIVS Associate Director for Operations – “CFD Simulation of Flow Dynamics in a Twin-Slab Caster”
• Ty Okosun, CIVS Associate Director for Research – “On the Influence of Hot Reducing Gas Injection on Blast Furnace Performance”
• Nick Walla, CIVS Senior Research Engineer – “Comparison of Lance and Plug Methods for Gas Purging in a Ladle on Mixing Efficiency”
• Faizaan Syed, Graduate Research Assistant – “Microparticle Inclusion in a Water Ladle Model With Foamy Oil”
• Nick Walla, CIVS Senior Research Engineer – “Comparison of Slab Thermal Stresses in Methane vs. Hydrogen-Fired Reheating Furnace Operations With Computational Fluid Dynamics”

Session Chair

• Chenn Zhou, CIVS Director – Session Chair for Energy & Utilities: Sustainable Utilities Generation

AISTech is North America’s largest annual iron and steel technology conference and exposition. It provides a global perspective on today’s marketplace by featuring technologies from all over the world that help steelmakers to compete more effectively. AISTech is hosted by The Association for Iron & Steel Technology. AISTech 2025, held in Nashville, TN from May 5-8, 2025, attracted over 8,000 steel professionals from 40 countries.

The conference and exhibition, the largest annual iron and steel event in North America, also had over 700 exhibitors. The Association for Iron & Steel Technology (AIST) is a non-profit organization with over 18,500 members from over 70 countries. AIST represents a large network of steel industry professionals with tremendous knowledge and expertise.