Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche 12, 60131 Ancona, Italy.
Alperia Green Future, Via Dodiciville 8, 39100 Bolzano, Italy.
Sensors (Basel). 2023 Apr 13;23(8):3966. doi: 10.3390/s23083966.
In this paper, a unified level 2 Advanced Process Control system for steel billets reheating furnaces is proposed. The system is capable of managing all process conditions that can occur in different types of furnaces, e.g., walking beam and pusher type. A multi-mode Model Predictive Control approach is proposed together with a virtual sensor and a control mode selector. The virtual sensor provides billet tracking, together with updated process and billet information; the control mode selector module defines online the best control mode to be applied. The control mode selector uses a tailored activation matrix and, in each control mode, a different subset of controlled variables and specifications are considered. All furnace conditions (production, planned/unplanned shutdowns/downtimes, and restarts) are managed and optimized. The reliability of the proposed approach is proven by the different installations in various European steel industries. Significant energy efficiency and process control results were obtained after the commissioning of the designed system on the real plants, replacing operators' manual conduction and/or previous level 2 systems control.
本文提出了一种用于钢坯加热炉的统一二级先进过程控制系统。该系统能够管理不同类型炉子中可能出现的所有工艺条件，例如步进梁式和推杆式。提出了一种多模式模型预测控制方法，以及虚拟传感器和控制模式选择器。虚拟传感器提供钢坯跟踪以及更新的过程和钢坯信息；控制模式选择器模块在线定义要应用的最佳控制模式。控制模式选择器使用定制的激活矩阵，并且在每种控制模式中，都会考虑不同的被控变量和规范子集。所有的炉子条件（生产、计划/非计划停机/停工和重启）都得到了管理和优化。该方法的可靠性已通过不同欧洲钢铁行业的不同安装得到证明。在实际工厂上设计的系统投入使用后，获得了显著的节能和过程控制效果，取代了操作人员的手动操作和/或以前的二级系统控制。
