Abstract:
Digital transformation is the industrial revolution of our age. A number of tools and services are now available to increase productivity, improve safety conditions, control and optimize the environmental impact (energy utilization, emissions etc.), train operators and keep track of all aspects of the production cycle.
iMeltShop™ is a complete system developed to allow electric steelmakers to embrace this revolution. It consists of a complete suite of tools that enable scrap recognition and tracking, the optimization of EAF charge, the monitoring of all melt shop equipment conditions, an online production optimizer able to re-program the production schedule in to continuously optimize operations in case of unforeseen events. The utilization of artificial intelligence and algorithms developed in steelmaking environment give tangible results.
All equipment in the plant can be monitored using video cameras without the need of installing new sensors. These allow, for example, ladles recognition and maintenance management or monitoring of continuous casters resulting in safer and cheaper maintenance cycles, without modifying equipment installing additional sensors.
In addition to IoT and artificial intelligence, robotics contributes substantially to the digital acceleration: Tenova and Polytec partnered to create robotics solutions now installed in many EAFs around the world. The innovative robotic cell developed (and patented) allows the automatic sampling of steel temperature and composition and the video inspection of the inside of the furnace. These pictures and videos can be processed by artificial intelligence algorithms to predict potential failures and calculate the erosion of the refractories. Other dedicated robotics solutions allow the operations and maintenance of the EAF tapping, thermo cameras at tapping can detect the presence of slag in the stream and therefore regulate automatically the EAF tapping without the need of human interaction.
Robotics has also been extended to other applications, like LF/VD sampling and management of continuous casters (snorkels installation, powder distribution, steel sampling in tundish etc.).
The benefits of digitalization extend beyond the melt shop to the rolling mill, tracking all inventories from casting to rolling mill to the finite product warehouse, to the final customers. Tagging robots can label casted products and finished products with dedicated labels which can be tracked in warehouses.
