Synergic Combination of Hardware and Software Innovations for Energy Efficiency and Process Control Improvement: A Steel Industry Application

Silvia Maria Zanoli (), Crescenzo Pepe and Lorenzo Orlietti
Additional contact information
Silvia Maria Zanoli: Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche 12, 60131 Ancona, Italy
Crescenzo Pepe: Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche 12, 60131 Ancona, Italy
Lorenzo Orlietti: Alperia Green Future, Via Dodiciville 8, 39100 Bolzano, Italy

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 10, 1-20

Abstract: The present paper proposes a steel industry case study focused on a reheating furnace and a rolling mill. Hardware and software innovations were successfully combined in order to obtain process control and energy efficiency improvement. The reheating furnace at study is pusher type and processes billets. The hardware innovation is related to the installation of an insulated tunnel at the end of the reheating furnace, in order to guarantee a higher heat retention of the billets before their path along the rolling mill stands. The software innovation refers to the design and the installation of an Advanced Process Control system which manipulates the gas flow rate and the stoichiometric ratio of the furnace zones in order to satisfy the control specifications on billets and furnace variables. The control system is based on Model Predictive Control strategy and on a virtual sensor which tracks and estimates the billet features inside/outside the furnace. The designed controller was commissioned on the real plant, providing significant performances in terms of service factor, process control, and energy efficiency.

Keywords: hardware innovation; software innovation; energy efficiency; Advanced Process Control; model predictive control; steel industry; rolling mill; reheating furnace; billets; insulated tunnel (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/10/4183/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/10/4183/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:10:p:4183-:d:1150412

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().