The year 2024 – 2025, was a successful year for the McGill Metals Processing Centre in terms of professional activities and accomplishments. We continued developing our research programs on physical and mathematical modelling (CFD) of ladle-tundish-mould operations, liquid metal cleanliness, and strip casting. In terms of the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) work and associated full-scale water modelling experiments, our research focused on transient steel flow studies in ladle shrouds during start-up operations, with or with no, air infiltration, as well as CFD modelling of argon purging methodology used in the elliptical ladles at RTMP, as well as at RTIT. This research was carried out in our collaboration with Rio Tinto Iron and Titanium, and Rio Tinto Metal Powder Quebec. Our research work has formed the basis of several publications in refereed journals and presentations by members of our research group at the 2024 Conference of Metallurgists held in Halifax, in August 2024, as well as at the 2025 TMS meeting held in Las Vegas, USA, in March 2025.
The research program on melt cleanliness, creating micro-bubbles in simulated ladle shrouds, aimed at the “Deep Cleaning” of liquid steel and aluminum, carried by the research group of the McGill Metals Processing Centre is funded by an NSERC Alliance grant on “New and Innovative Technology for the Advanced Removal of Deleterious Inclusions for State-of-the-Art Steels” and a CQRDA (Quebec Centre for Research and Development of Aluminum) grant on “An Innovative Method for the Advanced Removal of Deleterious Inclusions and Small Microbubbles from Steel and Aluminum Melts”. Three industrial collaborators, including Rio Tinto Iron and Titanium (RTIT), Rio Tinto Metal Powder (RTMP), and INTRAL, Quebec, are supporting the designed research program.
Our experimental work in generating microbubbles in liquid melts, using our newly designed and executed, custom-made, Microbubble Generator, as well as of a newly adapted Liquid Metals Cleanliness Analyzer (LiMCA) for low temperature melts, have given us very good results. We have made significant advances in researching, producing, and monitoring microbubble formation for the deep cleaning of melts. Our experimental work was supported by mathematical modelling of fluid flows in ladle shroud systems, plus creating microbubbles in melts for removing deleterious inclusions and advancing the cleanliness possibilities of steelmaking melts.
Following the significant outcome of our research on designing a New Ladle Shroud for the RTMP operation in Quebec, at their Sorel-Tracy plant, Roderick Guthrie, Mihaiela Isac and PhD Candidate Daniel Gonzalez Morales were pleased by McGill’s decision to apply for Provisional Patents on a “LADLE SHROUD FOR METAL CASTING SYSTEM”, in the United States and Canada, to be assigned to the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning/McGill University. In 2024, the McGill Technology Transfer Office filed a PCT / International patent Application on our research on a New Design of Ladle Shroud (Our ref.: 05001770-968PCT).
The MMPC together with RTMP, TYK refractory company, and RHI Magnezita refractory company are at the level of industrial implementation of our patent.
PhD graduate student Giacomo Daniel Di Silvestro together with our co-op students Daniel Bonneau, Ruohao Li, and Shutian Ge are recording significant research results on the fundamentals of microbubble generation for removing deleterious inclusions from melts
In terms of strip casting of metals and alloys, the MMPC students and personnel were able to work on CFD models by taking advantage of the high computational speeds possible with the MMPC’s 288 core High Performance Computer Cluster system. We have focused on two CFD modelling activities, one being to successfully demonstrate the capabilities of the Horizontal Single Belt Casting technique as a new, green, casting approach, for creating high quality sheet products. Our second activity has been to model the use of microbubbles as an advanced method for cleaning liquid steels of all deleterious inclusions, to obtain a new level state-of-the-art steel cleanliness, as sought now-a-days for most applications. Our previous experimental work using the Pilot Scale HSBC (Horizontal Single Belt Caster) has allowed us to use that valuable experimental data to confirm our current CFD modelling work. As such, our previous experimental work at the Stinson Laboratories was used to confirm our current mathematical modelling of processing thin strips of AA6111, AA5182, AA2024, AA7068 aluminum alloys, as well as thin strips of amorphous alloys using three potentially vitrifiable calcium alloys (60Ca-20Mg-20Al, 60Ca-15Mg-10Al-15Zn, 55Ca-15Mg-10Al-15Zn-5Cu, %at). Our current strip casting and ladle-tundish-mold research work is financially supported by NSERC, CQRDA, RTIT, and RTMP, and INTRAL. The MMPC’s significant experimental and CFD modelling work have emphasized the advantages of the HSBC technique as the way steel and light metals thin sheet products can be cast with great economical success, using this green technology. The HSBC technique, plus the Bessemer Twin Roll approach (patented 1856), are the two Near Net Shape Casting moving mold processes that are in competition for producing thin strips of steel, and of light metals. The Twin Roll approach was commercialized by NUCOR, in the United States, whilst the HSBC (Horizontal Single Belt Casting) concept, developed much more recently in Canada and in Germany (~1980), has also been commercialized. It was operating since 2016 in the Casting and Rolling Works of Salzgitter AG, located in Peine, Germany, and by Materion in 2019, casting copper-nickel based alloys in the USA. As such, the world community of steelmakers is now alerted to this new casting paradigm, and a radically new business model, which promises to lower the cost of conventional continuous casting operational burden by about 80%, while producing equivalent, as well as more advanced, grades of Advanced High Strength steels. Furthermore, it is also environmentally advantageous in comparison with conventional methods, producing about 80% less CO2 emissions! Working on this project, our PhD student, Carlos Riviere, has just graduated with his Doctorate diploma on May 31st, 2024.
PhD Candidate Daniel Gonzalez Morales, Mihaiela M. Isac and Roderick Guthrie received the Light Metals Best Paper Award at the 2024 Conference of Metallurgists organized in Halifax by the Metallurgical Society of Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum.
PhD Candidate Rohit Tiwari received 2024 Graduate Research Excellence Award for his accomplishments on research and published papers during his PhD studies, to date.
M. Eng student, Mathieu Petit, working on “Understanding and mitigating hydrogen embrittlement of steels through modelling and design” is preparing to submit his M. Eng thesis. He is currently working as an engineer in the steelmaking plant of Arcelor Mital Long Products, Contrecoeur, Quebec.
With respect to bringing in new members to the MMPC, we are pleased to welcome Professors Philippe Ouzilleau and Alessandro Navarra to our team of Academic Regular members. Similarly, as other news from our team of MMPC professors, Professor Mamoun Medraj of Concordia University is collaborating with us on our newly awarded NSERC Alliance grant, as a co-applicant.
McGill honored Dr. Roderick Guthrie and Dr. Mihaiela Isac of the Department of Mining and Materials Engineering at the 20th Annual Bravo Gala. The event was held on March 27, 2025, celebrating McGill researchers who had received prestigious provincial, national or international awards in 2024. We were celebrated for receiving the Light Metals Best Paper Award from the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum.
Other MMPC academic team members, who include Professor Kinnor Chattopadhyay UofT, Dr. Mihaiela Isac, and myself, have all been working on the publication of a new extended version of the TREATISE ON PROCESS METALLURGY, Volume 2A: Process Phenomena, Second Edition, April 2025, Elsevier, 630 pp, ISBN 978-0-323-85836-3. This is now a seven-volume undertaking. The first edition of this Treatise on Process Metallurgy was a four-volume publication, published by Elsevier, in 2014, ISBN: 978-0-08-0969984-8, and proved to be a big success. As such, the new edition has been expanded further to cover the whole range of topics on the Metallurgical Processing Industries.
We were also very pleased to learn that Dr Mihaiela Isac was selected as Chair of the Symposium “Aluminum Alloys: Development and Manufacturing”, gathering professionals from all around the world. The event was held at the 2025 TMS International Conference held in Las Vegas, USA. Finally, Dr. Mihaiela Isac, and Dr. Roderick Guthrie, have been very active within the MMPC, through many joint events, organized with the Light Metals Committee Section of the Metallurgical Society of CIM (Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum). It is appropriate to mention their contributions as 2024 Co-Chairs of the Symposium ‘’Light Metals for the Transportation and Next Generation Vehicles’’ organized in conjunction with the Metallurgical Society of CIM-Annual Conference of Metallurgists-COM 2024, held in Halifax, Canada, on 19th-24th, August 2024.
To conclude, the MMPC has successfully operated by reorganizing itself to respond to the future needs of the metallurgical process community. At the MMPC, given our fine array of unique and valuable research equipment and research programs, we are confident in remaining very relevant to the metallurgical industry, as we continue to attract, and to welcome, able graduate students from Canada and from around the world. We are confident that new cohorts of graduate students will continue to study Process Metallurgy at the MMPC, in collaboration with its supporting industries.
Respectfully submitted
Roderick Guthrie, Ph.D., FRSC, FCAE, FCIM, FTMS, FIMM, Eng.,
Honorary Member of ISIJ & AIME, Distinguished Member of AIST
Director, McGill Metals Processing Centre.