The steel industry has been an asset in society’s development; therefore, the worldwide production of crude steel has shown a growing trend. Following the sustainability principles reflected by the World Steel Association, incorporating pyrometallurgical by-products into a circular economy framework is of great interest to maximize the efficient use of resources throughout the life cycle of steel products and to help reduce CO2 emissions. Thus, research to optimize the supply chain of raw materials has increased, and there is a need to address the energy consumption of the highly demanding mechanical processes related to it, such as crushing.  

This PhD research focuses on the development of a framework that facilitates the optimization of comminution processes for secondary raw materials and enhances the value of material data for modeling breakage processes in the upscaling and evaluation of crushing at an industrial scale.  This investigation was divided into two primary components. First, an experimental framework was developed and implemented to characterize the tensile and compressive responses of electric arc furnace (EAF) manganese slag under both quasi-static and dynamic conditions. In the first study, manganese slag, a highly heterogeneous material, was examined, providing insights into the methodologies and challenges associated with sample manufacturing, quasi-static testing using simple loading schemes, and processing of mechanical and optical data. In the second study, the macro-response of slag under dynamic conditions was investigated, providing pertinent information regarding processing and crushing in relation to rate-dependent behavior, as well as energy expenditure during the fragmentation processes. The second part of this research focused on evaluating a numerical framework to upscale the fracture processes in crushing applications. Simulations of the fracture process of quasi-brittle materials employing finite element methods (FEM) were implemented and evaluated for mineral and secondary raw materials, enhancing the knowledge regarding the calibration of material models to simulate complex geometries with a high level of detail in the crack patterns and the accuracy of the failure loads. Finally, a fourth research article demonstrated the viability of employing an established material model to simulate slag from a macroscopic perspective.