A reasonable tundish flow behavior could improve liquid steel cleanliness by promoting floating and removal of the inclusions. The flow behaviors of the tundish could be obtained by water model experiments and numerical simulations, respectively. However, the difference in density between the tracer and water in the experiment can contribute to notable errors. A new type of tracer, which is a mixture of potassium chloride (KCl) and ethanol, was proposed in this study to reduce the errors. The numerical simulation model was validated by the experimental data and its error was below 2%. By comparing the flow behaviors in seven tundishes with different inner structures obtained by simulation, it is found that the C1 can significantly reduce the dead volume ratio and C4 can improve the uniformity of liquid steel charged though each outlet. The structural strength of the baffle in C1 scheme was not considered, resulting in a crack of the baffle in the industrial trial. Industrial trials of the molten steel flow in the C4-based tundish were conducted and reported a reduction of 43.81% in the inclusions over the prototype.

The gyratory crusher is one of the most important mineral processing assets in the comminution circuit, and its production performance directly impacts the circuit throughput. Due to its higher energy utilisation rate for rock breakage than semi-autogenous (SAG/AG) milling, it is a common practice in operations to promote and optimise primary crushing before the downstream capacity can be enhanced. This study aims to develop a discrete element modelling (DEM) and multibody dynamics (MBD) cosimulation framework to optimise the performance of the gyratory crusher. An MBD model was initially established to simulate the gyratory crusher’s drivetrain system. A GPU-based DEM was also developed with a parallel bond model incorporated to simulate the particle breakage behaviour. Coupling of the MBD and GPU-based DEM resulted in a cosimulation framework based on the Function Mock-up Interface. An industrial-scale gyratory crusher was selected to test the developed numerical framework, and results indicated that the developed method was capable of modelling normal and choked working conditions. The outcome of this study enabled more realistic gyratory crusher improvement and optimisation strategies for enhanced production.