Nozzle Clogging Prediction in Steel Casting PDF
Nozzle Clogging Prediction in Steel Casting PDF
1
University of Oulu, Control Engineering Laboratory, Oulu, Finland
2
Rautaruukki Steel, Raahe, Finland
Abstract: Submerged entry nozzle connects the tundish and the mold in the continuous
casting of steel. Continuous casting is usually done in series including 3–6 successive
heats. Casting of a heat takes about 35–50 minutes. The nozzle is changed after each
series and the new series is started with a new nozzle. About 360–720 tons of steel goes
through a nozzle during its lifetime.
The casting speed and the stopper rod position give the indication of nozzle clogging,
but they cannot, however, answer the question, how long time the casting can continue
and when the nozzle should be changed. In this paper, feedforward neural networks
with backpropagation training were used in modelling the nozzle clogging behaviour at
Rautaruukki Steel mill, at Raahe site. Copyright © 2002 IFAC
Keywords: Neural networks, prediction, fault diagnosis, quality control, steel industry
This paper shows the results of a research project that 2.1 What is nozzle clogging?
aimed to find reasons for nozzle clogging in the sub-
merged entry nozzle in continuous casting of steel, Submerged entry nozzle connects the tundish and the
and also to develop tools for predicting the occur- mold in the continuous casting of steel (Fig. 2). It is a
rence of this phenomenon. It is known that better tube with a diameter of about 15 cm and it divides
management of casting brings along considerable the molten steel into two directions on the both sides
potential for production increase and quality im- of the nozzle. The direct flow downwards should be
provement. avoided, because in this case aluminium compounds
in slag would stay in molten steel. The nozzle trans-
The casting plant at Rautaruukki Raahe Steel consists fers molten steel from the tundish to the mold and
of five single strand continuous casters. Casting separates steel from the atmosphere.
process starts by opening the steel ladle (see Fig. 1).
Then the steel flows in a continuous stream through Usually one cast series includes 3–6 successive heats
the ladle into the tundish. From the tundish the steel meaning the same number of ladles. Casting of a heat
flows through a submerged entry nozzle into a mold takes about 35–50 minutes. Each series is designed to
where the solidification of steel starts. Partly solidi- consist of the same steel quality. The nozzle is
fied cast strand is pulled out from the mold by rollers. changed after each series and the new series is started
The inner part of the cast strand is solidified in the with a new nozzle. About 360–720 tons of steel goes
secondary cooling zone by air-water spray cooling. through a nozzle during its lifetime. The risk of
At the end of the casting machine, a torch cutting nozzle clogging increases all the time so that when
machine cuts the cast strand to slabs. about 360 tons of steel has been cast (after the third
ladle) the nozzle condition must be monitored care- 2.2 Reasons and remedies
fully. The operators estimate, based on vision and the
casting plan, if the clogging should be removed or There are several reasons that contribute to nozzle
the nozzle changed in the middle of the cast series. clogging:
Nozzle clogging is not an instantaneous phenome-
non, but rather it develops with time. - metallurgical factors: steel cleanness and
aluminium content,
The clogging can be removed by pumping the - hydrodynamic factors: steel flow rate and
stopper rod and in this way continue the casting nozzle geometry,
series without changing the nozzle. Different nozzle - thermodynamic factors: cold steel and heat
materials and designs and dimensions of the nozzle transfer inside the nozzle,
are available. - nozzle material, and
- unpredictable disturbances and operational
faults.
Mold level
3. DATA ACQUISITION AND ANALYSIS
50 Stopper rod position Nozzle clogging was modelled using neural net-
works. Modelling with neural networks consists of
0
two phases: training and testing. In training, network
4
27
59
166
220
274
328
379
432
474
507
113
Distance in the strand Before training, all input and output variables were
scaled. Usually, the scaling is done in intervals -1 –
Fig. 3. Examples of casting speed and stopper rod +1 or 0 – +1. Most of the inputs were scaled using
position in undisturbed case (upper figure) and in the Matlab-function prestd() that scales the variables
a nozzle clogging case (lower figure). to the average value of zero and the standard devia-
tion 1. The serial number of the heat is scaled inside
the interval 0.16–1.16 by dividing it by 6. The serial
number starts from 1 and the longest series count to
seven heats. The mold width (koklev) was scaled knowledge. The original results are shown in project
inside the interval 0 – +1 using equation 1: reports (Ikäheimonen, Leiviskä, Ruuska, 2001).
Koklev=(koklev-1000)/800 (1)
Predicted
The output variable of the network is the amount of M easured
cast tons with a certain nozzle without pumping. Its
values were scaled inside the interval 0.16–1.16 by
dividing the actual measurement value by 720 that is
the total amount of six heats in tons.
REFERENCES
0
Actual-predicted
-20 0 Craig, I.K., F.R. Camisani-Calzolari, P.C. Pistorius
0 50 1 00 150 2 00 2 50 300 (2001). A contemplative stance on the automa-
tion of continuous casting in steel processing.
Fig. 6. An example from testing the NN-model with Control Engineering Practice 9, pp. 1013-1020.
data from successful cases. Dussud, M., S. Galichet, L.P. Foulloy (2000). Appli-
cation of fuzzy logic control for continuous
casting mold level control. IEEE Trans. on Con-
6. CONCLUSION trol Systems Technology, 6. no. 2, pp. 246-256.
Ikäheimonen, J., K. Leiviskä, J. Ruuska (2001).
Nozzle clogging problem causes production losses Report B32, University of Oulu, Control Engi-
and quality impairment in continuous casting, espe- neering Laboratory. (In Finnish)
cially with aluminium-killed steels. Variations in Miyazawa, K. (2001). Continuous casting in Japan.
stopper rod position and casting speed provide the Science and Technology of Advanced Materials,
operator with the first information on increased risk 2, pp. 59-63.
of nozzle clogging. This cannot, however, answer the Pielet, H.M., D. Bhattacharya (1984). Thermody-
question, how long time the casting can continue and namics of nozzle blockage in continuous casting
when the nozzle should be changed. In this paper, a of calcium-containing steels. Metallurgical
system is proposed that aims to estimate also the time Transactions B, 15, pp. 547-562.
available for undisturbed casting. Rackers, K.G. and B.G. Thomas (1995). Clogging of
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without changing the nozzle is predicted using neural Okamoto, K., T. Nakamura, M. Kondo (1982).
network models. These models are based on data Development of alumina-graphite immersion
collected from Rautaruukki Steel Mill’s converter nozzle for continuous casting. Iron and Steel
plant and two casters; numbers 5 and 6. A total num- Engineering, no. 9, pp. 47-52.
ber of 5800 heats and 67 variables were analysed. Takasugi, H., T. Masaoga, A. Shirayama, T. Mori, H.
However, the number of variables effecting nozzle Murakami (1990). Prevention of alumina build-
clogging is quite small. Feedforward networks with up in submerged entry nozzles for continuous
backpropagation were applied. Separate model for casting of low carbon Al-killed steels. 6th Inter-
both casters were needed and, in addition to this, data national Iron and Steel Conference, Nagoya, pp.
had to be divided in four quality groups. This shows 462-469.
that different variables dominate in different cases.