Ashwin Chandarana

Mr. Ashwin Chandarana is a Chemical Engineer from L.D. College of Engineering, Ahmedabad, having graduated in 1988. He has about 30 years of experience in areas of Process design, Detail engineering, Field Services and Technical trainings. Mr. Chandarana has been involved in Design, revamp, execution and Commissioning of several gas based DRI plants around the world, ranging of capacities from 0.44 MMTPA to 1.84 MMTPA, and having Cold discharge, Hot discharge and Dual discharge modes. Mr. Chandarana has been Engineering consultant for DRI plants of Essar Steel Ltd. and JSW Ltd. in India. He also has held the position of Head of Field Services at Midrex Technologies, USA who are leaders in Gas based DRI plants. He also represents CALGAVIN Ltd, UK in India for engineering solutions in areas of Heat transfer and energy.

Topic: Optimization Of Gas Based DRI Plants

Abstract: Lean Natural gas may be easily available at one location, whereas water may be scarce commodity at other. Only small part of existing system could be a bottleneck in upgradation of an existing plant, whereas electrical power could be critical cost component elsewhere. Production capacity could be top priority in one instance, whereas Productivity and Efficiency could be priority in another. Addressing such issues, especially in a running plant is a big challenge considering the downtime loss and other limitations. Innovative solutions for optimization for gas based DRI plant can be applied to existing operating plants or to new designs.

In the competitive world of manufacture, it always is a challenge to optimize the plant design and operation given the fact that different plants operate in different geographical and socio-economic zones. The quality, availability and costs of inputs vary across these zones and so do environmental requirements. Single rule book cannot be devised for solutions to all such plants, and hence, the objective of this paper is to discuss innovative engineering approach.