ULCOS-Pilot testing of the low-CO 2 Blast Furnace process at the experimental BF in Luleå The ULCOS blast furnace process aims at reducing the CO 2 emission of the blast furnace by 50% in two steps: l Decrease of carbon consumption by recycling most of the top gas after CO 2 removal, which requires operating the blast furnace with pure oxygen; l Underground storage of CO2.

Reduction kinetic tests of Mt. Newman hematite ore from Western Australia were carried out in a laboratory-scale fluidized bed reactor at temperatures from 623 to 873 K and an absolute pressure of 10 bar. The reducing gas mixture was thermodynamically in equilibrium with magnetite and consisted of a mixture of H 2 , H 2 O, CO, CO 2 and CH 4 . The effect of temperature and residence time was studied. The original ore and its mineralogical and petrographical changes with increasing reduction time were analyzed. A reflected-light microscope technique with CCD-camera was used to determine the progress and the mechanism of reduction. According to the mineralogy and texture the ore could be classified in four types (coarse hematite, microplaty hematite, limonite and martite) with different reduction characteristics. Limonite and martite showed better reducibility than coarse and fine hematite.At all ore types the growth of dense magnetite rims was observed. The thickness of these layers was found to be linear proportional to reduction time. After analyzing the single steps of the reduction process the phase interface reaction turned out to be rate controlling between 673 and 773 K. Its activation energy is 91 kJ/mol. KEY WORDS: iron ore reduction; fluidized bed; hematite; magnetite; elevated pressure; rate controlling step.

In this paper, we present a radar sensor system for real-time blast furnace burden surface imaging inside a fully operative blast furnace, called BLASTDAR, the blast furnace radar. The designed frequency-modulated continuouswave (FMCW) radar sensor array operates in the frequency band around 77 GHz and consists of several nonuniformly spaced receive and transmit antennas, making it a multiple-input multiple-output radar system with large aperture. Mechanical steering is replaced by digital array processing techniques. Off-the-shelf automotive-qualified multichannel monolithic microwave integrated circuits are used. By means of this configuration, a virtual antenna array with 256 elements was developed that guarantees the desired angular resolution of better than 3°, and a range resolution of about 15 cm. Based on the single-channel FMCW signal model, this paper will derive a multichannel signal model in combination with a digital beamforming approach and further advanced signal processing algorithms. The implementation of a simulation tool covering the whole design process is shown. Based on these simulation results, a system configuration is chosen and the obtained setup is defined and presented. A description of the manufactured cost-efficient radio frequency and baseband boards together with the housing design shows the practical implementation of the sensor. For the system calibration, two different methods are listed and compared regarding their performance. Verification measurements confirm the predicted performance of the developed sensor. Several measurements inside a fully operational blast furnace demonstrate the proper long-term functionality of the system, to the best of our knowledge, for the first time worldwide. It is in continuous operation since about two years in blast furnace #5 of voestalpine Stahl GmbH, Linz.Index Terms-Sensor array, digital beamforming, speckle effect, radar imaging, blast furnace. 1530-437X has been a Key Researcher with the Austrian Center of Competence in Mechatronics, where he is responsible for numerous industrial projects. Since 2011, he has been a Full Professor with Johannes Kepler University Linz, where he is heading the Department for RF-Systems. He has authored or co-authored over 320 journal and conference papers. His research is focused on microwave sensor systems for industrial and automotive applications, radar concepts, SiGe-based circuit design, microwave packaging in eWLB, RF and microwave subsystems, surface acoustic wave sensor systems and applications, and digital signal processing for sensor signal evaluation. He is a member of the Austrian ÖVE. He has served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS. He currently serves as the Co-Chair of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques (MTT)-27 Wireless-Enabled Automotive and Vehicular Applications. He was a recipient of several awards, including the 2008 IEEE MTT Society Stefan Scheiblhofer (S'03-M'

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