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In the iron and steel making process, hot rolling only accounts for approximately 10% of the energy consumption. Yet 1.5 to 2 GJ/t steel are consumed for hot rolling, and 80% of this energy is utilised for reheating of the slab. The rolling itself requires only 0.3 to 0.4 GJ/t1. Increasing energy costs and targets for the reduction of CO2 emissions provide a constant challenge for all high temperature process users to optimise their processes. In addition to raw material and labour costs, the costs for energy and environmental requirements play an increasingly important role. New technical solutions are required to improve the energy efficiency and reduce the energy consumption and CO2 emissions. The target of ArcelorMittal Bremen GmbH, Germany, and FBB Engineering GmbH is to optimise the hot rolling process from an energy point of view, reduce CO2 emissions, and reduce the operational cost of the reheating furnaces. Another important aspect is the increase in productivity by reducing the shutdown time of the furnace. This paper discusses how energy consumption and energy loss can be reduced in reheating furnaces of hot rolling mills by new lightweight refractory materials and a new lining concept for the skid pipe insulation. &nbsp

The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the world`s most affected regions by Climate Change. Long-term remote sensing time series enable to study changes and to reveal information on the underlying processes of the cryosphere as well as the interlinkages with the atmosphere. The German Antarctic Recieving Station (GARS) at O'Higgins operated by the German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD/DLR) has acquired data from the two European Space Agency (ESA) European Remote Sensing satellite mission (ERS-)1/2 between 1991 and 2011. Data of other space borne SAR sensors such as ESA`s ENVISAT ASAR, JAXA`s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) ALOS PALSAR, DLR`s TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X or the European mission Sentinel-1 will complement to a dense time series of SAR measurements from the 1990s until today for several regions of the Antarctic Peninsula. Differential interferometric synthetic radar (DInSAR) methods and intensity tracking are applied inorder to derive important glaciological parameters such as grounding line positions, glacier velocities, surface elevations, ice mass fluxes and glacier mass balances. Additionally, calibrated SAR amplitude images as well as images taken by optical sensors (e.g. Landsat) are used to map glacier extends and to compute changes of glacier areas. We represent first results of a case study at the Wordie Ice Shelf, located at the south-western side of the Antarctic Peninsula. This ice shelf disintegrated in a series of events during the 1970s and 1980s, so that already in the beginning of the 1990s only disconnected and retreating tidewater glaciers remained. Due to the loss of the buttressing effect of the ice shelf, an increased ice mass discharge has been observed. An increase of flow speeds and elevation decrease have been reported by previous studies – mainly on a bi-temporal basis. However, how long and how exactly in time this process of adaption to the new boundary conditions will last as well as how much ice mass loss and sea level rise is caused by this process is yet not well known. Thus we use dense SAR time series in conjunction with data on surface elevation from photogrammetry and laser/radar altimetry, ground penetrating radar as well as surface mass balance simulations to target more precise estimates as well as data sets that can be better compared with large-scale observations by the GRACE gravimetry mission.