Where appropriate, some of the models also provide a significant quantity of derived information, such as the liquidus temperature, viscosity, and basicity of slags, as well as gas ratios and degrees of reduction.Ī recent addition to Pyrosim is a general empirical model (Pyrobal), which complements the existing predictive models. Energy-controlled calculations (where the final process temperature has to be calculated) can also be performed for all models. Bypass streams, entrainment of metal in slag (for example), and simple recycle loops are easily handled.

The program provides process models to describe heating, chemical equilibrium, and multi-stage equilibrium with staged removal of a product stream. Processes involving furnaces, fluidized beds, and rotary kilns have been modelled by Pyrosim. Pyrosim has also recently been used successfully to model the plasma-arc treatment of waste materials such as lead blast-furnace slag and electric-arc furnace dust, processes inherently complex because of the number of chemical elements involved. The program has also been used for the study of various pyrometallurgical pretreatment options, such as preheating and prereduction, as well as processes involving combustion. The program has been successfully applied to the processing of ferroalloys, metal carbides, base metals, precious metals, and refractory metals. However, the program's structure was kept very general to allow other processes to be simulated. The program was originally developed in 1985, with the purpose of simulating processes for the production of raw stainless steel. An empirical modelling capability also allows the program to match known parameters of existing processes. This predictive ability allows the program to simulate novel processes rather accurately. One of the primary strengths of the program is its built-in capability to calculate multi-component multi-phase equilibria, along with the automatic performance of energy-balance calculations. Pyrosim is a general-purpose computer program for the steady-state simulation of pyrometallurgical processes.

Materials in pyrosim