Holistic Analysis on the Concept of Process Metallurgy and Its Application on the Modeling of the AOD Process
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criteria for evaluating the applied fields of science, such as engineering, often are based on practical justifications such as functionality and applicability instead of objectiveness or truthfulness, which are emphasized more commonly in the more fundamental (or theoretical) fields of science. The use of practical justifications is understandable when considering the value of a practical and applied field of science, and it is not reprehensible in itself. However, it is disruptive to realize that the contradiction between the application of scientific methods and the simultaneous neglect of their criteria is disregarded even in many academic considerations of engineering sciences. Consequences of the lack of philosophical considerations concerning engineering as an individual academic field of science can be seen in research activity that is either scientifically valid and far from practical usefulness or, alternatively, is very practical but far from being scientifically enduring. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that only the research institutions in which the fundamental nature and characteristics of their own fields are considered manage to create research activity that fulfills both scientific and practical requirements. In the field of metallurgy, the importance of being familiar EETU-PEKKA HEIKKINEN, University Teacher, TIMO FABRITIUS, Professor, and JAANA RIIPI, Doctoral Student, are with the Department of Process and Environmental Engineering, Laboratory of Process Metallurgy, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 4300, FI-90014 Oulu, Finland. Contact e-mail: eetu.heikkinen@oulu.fi. Manuscript submitted July 30, 2008. Article published online May 7, 2010. 758—VOLUME 41B, AUGUST 2010
with the fundamental concepts of one’s own field was emphasized as early as 1949 by John Chipman in his Howe Memorial lecture. The significance of both theory and practice also is stressed in Chipman’s lecture.[1] It would be misguiding to claim that the nature of process metallurgy would not be considered thoroughly because an extensive amount of metallurgical research can be regarded to have both scientific and practical value. However, the considerations behind the actual research often are considered to be too phisophical to be mentioned in reports and publications and, therefore, are included only in research strategies (in research) or in curricula (in education). A few comments on the connections between theory and practice also can be mentioned in the introductions of articles, but these are usually very dependent on the article’s topic and are not very general in nature. The lack of general considerations leads to a situation in which the differences (as well as the connections) between theoretical and practical issues of the research are not exposed to a public discussion in which scientific and theoretical fundamentals as well as practical criteria could be evaluated properly. Some considerations concerning certain fundamental concepts have been made in the field of chemical engineering[2–5] as well as on the certain specific topics (such
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