The transition to more sustainable metal production is receiving much attention at present, and the
iron and steel industry is at the centre of the conversation. New, more environmentally friendly
production technologies, such as direct reduced iron (DRI) smelting furnaces, need to be developed
in a short period of time. This necessitates increased use of computational modelling that
incorporates more accurate material descriptions.
The combination of large-scale multiphysics models of high-temperature processes with CALPHAD
material descriptions leads to infeasible computation times. This can be resolved with the previously
reported RapidThermo framework, which has been demonstrated to make equilibrium calculations
orders of magnitude faster, within controllable limits of accuracy.
In this paper, we explain how further material properties, which are important to modelling hightemperature
reactors, can be added to the RapidThermo framework. This can improve the accuracy
and usefulness of process and multiphysics models in the development of new technologies, which
can significantly accelerate development cycles.