TU Graz
Christoph Hochenauer
Can you briefly introduce yourself and your role within the HYDREAMS project?
My name is Christoph Hochenauer and I am a Professor at the Institute of Thermal Engineering at Graz University of Technology. In the HYDREAMS project, I am responsible for overseeing the supervision of my PhD students and Post Docs, therefore ensuring that our contributions align with the overall objectives of the project. We are mainly responsible for performing three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of the combustion process in steel reheating furnaces. We specifically determine the effect of hydrogen on the reaction kinetics and on the flow field in the furnace.
How does the collaboration within HYDREAMS align with your company’s sustainability goals?
Our university is deeply committed to sustainability and HYDREAMS provides us with the perfect platform to accelerate our efforts to reduce carbon emissions, while developing innovative hydrogen solutions that align with our long-term environmental goals.
What role do you see hydrogen playing in the future of steel production?
Hydrogen will play a pivotal role in the future of steel production by replacing traditional fossil fuels with clean hydrogen, enabling a significant reduction in CO2-emissions and helping the industry achieve its decarbonization goals.
Christian Kislinger
Can you briefly introduce yourself and your role within the HYDREAMS project?
I am Christian Kislinger from the Institute of Thermal Engineering at Graz University of Technology. I am responsible for the numerical simulations of the UGIT reheating furnace in Ugine to create a realistic model with deep insights into the processes. This allows us to predict and comprehend the changes caused by the modifications outlined in the project.
How does the collaboration within HYDREAMS align with your company’s sustainability goals?
Sustainability is considered and practiced holistically at our university. Projects such as HYDREAMS enable us to advance research into the most promising sustainable technologies and extend their impact to industry. We are therefore very grateful for our competent partners on the industrial side.
What innovations or technological advancements from HYDREAMS are you most looking forward to implementing?
From my point of view, the conversion of the reheating furnace with optimized hydrogen burners will be particularly interesting. This will demonstrate the impact of hydrogen combustion on the reheating behavior and steel properties on an industrial scale. The comparison with our laboratory experiments and numerical models will be a valuable exercise.