Continuous casting and mould level control

J. Schuurmans, Corus IJmuiden A.J.J. van der Weiden, Delft Center for Systems and Control

Continuous casting and mould level control

This plants discription 1 starts with an introduction to the Corus IJmuiden site and the company as a whole. After that, continuous casting is discussed, which is nowadays used in the production process for steel sheet, the main product of Corus IJmuiden. One of the plants where continuous casting is performed is called the Direct Sheet Plant, which will be discussed in section 3. At the end of this section the necessity for robust control techniques will be revealed, once it is shown that the process in the mould of the DSP caster is subject to time-varying dynamics and disturbances.

Corus

Corus is an international metals group that manufactures, processes and distributes metal products and provides related services such as design, technology and consultancy. Corus has manufacturing operations in many countries with major plants located in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Norway and Belgium and to provide local service, Corus also has sales oces and service centers all over the world. Corus is organised into four divisions and employs 48,500 people in over 40 countries.

1.1

IJmuiden

In IJmuiden, the main site of the Netherlands is located. It is mainly occupied by the strip products division. The manufactured products are highgrade and coated steels, that exit the plant as rolls. Approximately 9.500 people are employed in IJmuiden, which produced 6.8 million tonnes crude steel in 2004. IJmuiden.

1.2

Steel sheet production process

The end-product of the IJmuiden site is mainly steel sheet, while coals and iron ore enter the site. There are several production steps in between, these will be discussed next. The raw materials iron ore and coking coal are rst treated such that they are suitable for production in the blast furnace. The coking coal is
The plant description and the model is taken from J.P. Kuipers and V.A.H.J. Beentjes ( see references)
1

transformed into to cokes in the coke plant. Iron ore is transformed into both sinter and pellets in two dierent plants. These three components are charged in the blast furnace that melts the iron ore into iron pig at temperatures between 1000 C and 1200 C. This iron pig is very brittle and is therefore treated in the steel plant. Pure oxygen is blown over the steel bath and scrap is added; the liquid steel is then deoxidized and alloyed until specications are met. From this point on, the liquid steel can continue on two routes. It can go to a continuous slab caster, which casts at the thickness of 22.5 centimeters. The produced slabs are then transported to the hot rolling mill, where the slabs are reheated and rolled to a pre-determined thickness between 1.5 and 25 millimeters. Following the other route, the liquid steels goes to the Direct Sheet Plant which incorporates the casting and rolling process into one operation. The thickness of the sheet becomes approximately 1 millimeter. In the cold rolling mills the hot rolled strip is transformed into a nished product: cold rolled sheet with a thickness of approximately 0.5 millimeter. Afterwards, extra treatments can take place, such as annealing, coloring and applying zinc, tin, or chrome coating.

Continuous casting

In the beginning of the 20th century, the liquid steel was casted into blocks (a rectangular box). After solidication of the steel, the steel was lifted out of the block and reheated such that it could be rolled to obtain steel sheet. After the 1960s continuous casting became more common; although it has higher capital costs, the operating costs are lower. It is the most cost and energy ecient method to mass-produce semi-nished metal products with consistent quality in a variety of sizes and shapes. The essence of continuous casting is that the solidication of the liquid steel takes place on a continuous basis. The liquid steel solidies against the mould walls while it is simultaneously withdrawn from the bottom of the mold at a constant rate. This enables an ecient way to solidify large volumes of steel. The process works best when all of its aspects operate in this steady-state manner. Many dierent types of continuous casting processes exist. Vertical machines are used to cast aluminum and a few other metals for special applications. Curved machines are used for the majority of steel casting. Finally, thin strip casting is relatively new and has the advantage that the output of

the casting can be directly rolled to a thickness of approximate 1 millimeter.

Direct Sheet plant

In this section the process that takes place in the Direct Sheet Plant (DSP) is discussed. Next, remarks are made with respect to quality, output and process control. To limit the scope of this report, these remarks are restricted to the inuence factors that come from the mould only.

3.1

DSP process plant

The DSP is a relatively young plant. Its building was nished in 2000. The DSP produces steel sheet out of liquid steel, as explained in section 1. For this, it uses the thin strip casting technique. The strand, that comes out of the caster, has a thickness of 70mm. This strand can be rolled out at once, without the inecient transportation and reheating that is necessary for the other production route consisting of the continuous slab caster and the hot rolling mill. In gure 3.1, the process of the Direct Sheet Plant is explained in more detail.

Figure 3.1. Schematic overview of the DSP process.

The liquid steel comes from the steel plant in a ladle [1]. From this ladle it is poured in a tundish [2], which is essentially a buer. The tundish allows for replacing empty ladles without stopping the casting process. In case the ladle is almost empty, the tundish makes it possible that a second ladle can take over without having to stop casting. From the tundish the liquid steel ows through a nozzle into the mould. This nozzle is submerged in the mould bath. The ow rate trough the nozzle into the mould can be controlled by a stopper [3] in the tundish. The higher the position of the stopper, the larger the area through which the steel ows, the higher the ow rate and vice versa. The mould [4] is a rectangular copper box without a top and a bottom. Heat is extracted from the liquid steel through the copper walls of the box which are water cooled. This causes the outside of the liquid steel to solidify; an outer shell originates. The mould vibrates vertically to reduce friction between the solidied outer shell and the copper walls. Also, from above casting powder is poured onto the liquid steel bath; it melts due to high temperatures and ows in the gap between the mould and the solidied outer shell. It forms a lubricating layer which increases the heat ux out of the liquid steel. The outer shell is being grabbed by a driven roll [5] just beneath the mould, pulling a strand of steel out of the mould. The angular velocity of the driven roll determines the casting speed. The core of the strand, as it exits, is still liquid; because of that, the strand proceeds trough a secondary cooling section [6]. The strand is bend from the vertical plane to horizontal plane using rolls [7]. At the end of the cooling section the cross-section of the strand is completely solidied, slabs are then created by cutting the strand [8]. These slabs are put in a tunnel furnace to let them homogenize [9]. After a while the slabs come out of the furnace; subsequently they are rolled out, further cooled and nally coiled [10]; coiled steel sheet is the end-product of the DSP.

3.2

Quality

After the coiler, the end product of the DSP is tested for its quality which is done by unrolling a roll and inspecting its surface for pollution or cracks. Quality problems can be related to the rolling properties, such as temperatures and thickness, but can also be traced back to the casting section or the chemical composition. As mentioned before, casting powder is poured on top of the steel bath. 5

Ideally, the molten powder (slag) pours down the walls of the mould. However, a part of the powder solidies against the cooled walls, above the steel bath. Occasionally, pieces break o and fall into the steel bath and pollute the steel. During casting the level of the steel bath, i.e. the mould level, uctuates inevitably. With these uctuations, the temperatures in the copper walls near the top of the steel bath vary extremely, which causes the mould to crack. A crack in the mould is bound to form cracks in the outer shell of the strand. In the end, the approval or disapproval of the end product of the DSP depends on the requirements set. In the beginning of the DSP the requirements were mild, but lately, the raised standards have increased the prices level.

3.3

Output

The output of the DSP plant is of great importance from a business point of view. Simply reasoned, the more end products that leave the DSP, the higher its earnings and eciency. The output is aected by mould uctuations for two reasons. First, if small uctuations occur, the casting speed is reduced by the operators. Secondly, high uctuations can make the operators decide to stop the casting which leads to longer non-production times and negatively inuences the output. At the moment, the output is the subject of a discussion within Corus. A project under the name High Speed Casting is initiated to explore the possibilities of a higher casting speed, increasing output signicantly. A higher casting speed will denitely worsen the mould level uctuation, which will need much attention within the research project.

3.4

Process control

The quality and output issues mentioned above, clearly show the necessity for good process control. In general, it can be stated that a steady process and a constant casting speed are desired to ensure a calm initial solidication of the steel. Variations in the process disturb the initial solidication and because of that the strength of the solidied outer shell will not be equal over the perimeter. If the outer shell contains a weaker spot, the enormous pressure of the molten steel inside can cause the shell to tear open. This can happen

either inside the mould, or even worse, just under the mould causing a breakout. In that case the liquid steel pours out of the strand, resulting in damage of the machine and a lengthy standstill.

Mould level control

For the quality, the output and the process control it is advantageous to keep the mould level as constant as possible, this is done by mould level control. In this section, the conguration of the mould level controller will be discussed. Afterwards, the current control strategies are discussed. The parts of the caster that are under consideration for mould level control consists of a level sensor, the stopper, the nozzle and the mould itself. Measurements of the mould level are feeded into a control computer, on the basis whereof control signals are sent out to the stopper. This can all be seen in gure 4.1.

Figure 4.1. Mould level control

The control computer sends a signal to the actuator. It pushes a lever, which lifts and lowers the stopper rod. This determines the ingoing ow rate into the mould through the nozzle. At the bottom a strand of partly solidied steel is pulled out of the mould by driven rolls. This is seen as the outgoing ow rate. The outgoing ow rate is almost completely decided by the operator, who sets the casting speed, which is the angular speed of the driven rolls. 7

The net eect of the ingoing ow rate and outgoing ow determines the level of liquid steel in the mould. The mould level is measured using a level sensor. For the DSP a Berthold sensor is used. A Berthold sensor consists of a collector that counts particles that have been sent out by a radioactive source. Particles are not counted if they are sent into the liquid steel, this gives a measure which can be related to the level of liquid steel in the mould. The signal from the sensor is feeded into the control computer. Based on control algorithms, a control signal is send to the actuator. During a cast dierent mould level controllers are used. In the beginning these controllers were just classical PID controllers. Additionally, ow controller is used. This control loop uses a sensor that weighs the tundish and acts on the position of the stopper. If the level of liquid steel in the tundish increases, the weight will do so as well and this increase is measured. The higher the level in the tundish, the higher the ferrostatic pressure at the bottom and the higher the ow rate through the nozzle (for equal stopper positions). This eect is compensated for by the ow controller.

Robust control

The current controllers are xed controllers, i.e. they are designed and implemented in the control computer as a xed algorithm. However, parts of the process dynamics and disturbances change over time. If, for instance, a gain increases in the process, the xed controllers are not designed for the higher process gain. This will lead to performance losses or, occasionally, stability issues. The parts of the process dynamics and disturbances, that are believed to be time-varying are listed here: Stopper During casting, the stopper tip dimension changes. On the one hand, liquid steel solidies on the stopper tip and in the nozzle. On the other hand, the extreme hot ow of liquid steel wears the stopper down. The extent to which the stopper tip dimension changes depends on the temperature of the steel and its composition. Besides, aluminiumoxide, present in the liquid steel, solidies on the stopper tip, this is called clogging. mould-width Also inside the mould liquid steel solidies and can form a solid shell. So, the mould-width can change between casts.

Standing waves Other research has proven that, especially during startup, standing waves in the mould perturb the mould level. These standing waves are assumed to be a sloshing eect in an open surface, but the exact nature of the standing waves are unknown. Bulging Bulging is a the main disturbance in the outow from the mould, it takes place in the secondary cooling section . The outer shell is still thin and the liquid still inside has an enormous pressure. If the strand has passed a roll, the strand expands, but the strand squeezes again when in has to pass the next roll. This causes a pumping eect in the liquid core inuencing the outow rate. Bad rolls Problems in the secondary cooling section can also cause mould level disturbances. If one of the rolls is broken or for some reason not eccentric, it will start to produce vibrations, which propagate into the mould level. The nature of all of the above mentioned disturbances is time-varying. This means that the extent to which they occur depends between dierent casting sessions but, moreover, also during a casting session. No models are present that can predict that extent. Standing waves are currently being researched. The time-varying nature motivates the choice for resarch into other control methods. The goal for this exercise is to design a H-innity controller, such that performance improves, with regard to time-varying dynamics and disturbances. Not all time-varying elements can be taken into account. A choice has been made for standing waves, stopper gain and mould-width variations. The standing waves dynamics are usually mainly seen at the mould level during start-up. Whether the dynamics have a large inuence on the mould level uctuations during the bulk is not clear. For the other two, bulging and rolls, other solutions are also possible. This issues are still under research.

Model of casting process

It is important to decide which parts of the process are incorporated in the model and which are not. Therefore a system boundary is dened as shown in gure 6.1. The gure is a modelling representation deduced from gure 4.1.

qi (t)

Stopper System boundary u(t)

Am y (t)

Mould

qo (t)

Figure 6.1. System boundary. The manipulated variable is the stopper position, denoted by u. The stopper position determines the ow rate through the nozzle into the mould, qi , which can not measured and is considered an internal variable. The controlled variable y is the measured mould level which is measured by the Berthold sensor. The ow rate of the strand that exits the mould is considered the outow and is denoted by qo . The outow is mainly determined by the casting speed vc , which is set by the operators. The cross-section of the mould is Am , From gure 6.1 a basic block diagram for the system can be derived. This can be seen in gure 6.2. It is a rst conceptual block diagram, which does not include all phenomena yet. This block diagram will be extended.
qo u qi
+

Stopper

qn

Mould

ym

Sensor

Figure 6.2. Basic block diagram for mould process The block diagram reveals two more internal variables . These are the net ow rate qn and ym which is the actual mould level that has to be measured by the sensor.

10

Modelling of general process dynamics

In this section, the building blocks of gure 6.2 are being described by transfer functions. 7.0.1 Mould

The mould can be regarded as a tank. The net inow qn is the volume entering per unit time which should be equal to the change per unit time of the volume Am ym of the mould. Am d ym (t) = qn (t) dt 1 ym = qn Am s

where s is the Laplace operator. The resulting transfer function from net inow to mould level is: 1 Gm (s) = (1) Am s 7.0.2 Sensor

The mould level is measured from the bottom of the mould by a Berthold sensor. It consists of a radioactive source and collector. Due to the use of radioactivity, the Berthold sensor is known to be inuenced by noise n(t). The noise will be neglected for this excise. With respect to the block diagram in gure 6.2 the noise signal n(t) acts before the sensor. The transfer function from actual mould level ym and white noise n to measured mould level y is given by 1 Gb (s) = (2) b s + 1 7.0.3 Stopper and inow

The stopper gain varies in time, as explained in section 5, whereas the stopper dynamics does not. The model of the stopper block in gure 6.2 is therefore divided in a transfer function for the stopper dynamics and a time-varying gain. The transfer function from reference stopper u position to the actual stopper position ua is reected by Gs (s) = 1 (s s + 1)2 11 (3)

where s is the time constant. The actual stopper position is subsequently multiplied by the time-varying stopper gain ks (t) resulting in the ingoing ow qi qi (t) = ks (t)ua (t) (4) 7.0.4 Outow

The outgoing ow, qo , out of the mould is mainly determined by the casting speed, vc . The casting speeds is set by the operators; typical values are between 3 and 5m/min. The outow due to the casting speed, qc , is calculated as follows: qc (t) = Am vc = 0.1125 1 vc (t) = 1.875 103 vc (t) m3 /s 60 (5)

The outow is not just determined by the casting speed, but is modelled by adding a disturbance ow qd (t) to qc (t) qo (t) = qc (t) + qd (t) This disturbance ow will be neglected for this exercise. 7.0.5 Standing waves (6)

Standing waves are the result of interference of surface waves. For example, they also appear if water is poured into a bucket. Standing waves occurs mostly during startup of the casting process, but it is believed that standing waves can also occur during the bulk of casting. Standing waves dynamics can be represented in the frequency domain by badly damped eigenmodes with eigenfrequencies at the standing waves frequencies. The standing waves can be considered a dynamical system on top of the basic mould process and have eigenfrequencies that are dependent of the mould width. In order to maintain stability and good performance, the controller should not excite those eigenfrequencies. Identication experiments have led to a model for the standing waves. Gw (s) = k1 2a1 b1 1 s 2a2 b2 2 s 2 + k2 s2 + 2b s + 2 s2 + 2b1 1 s + 1 2 2 2 (7)

The intensities of the standing waves can be altered by the wave gains k1 and k2 . Reasonable values for the wave gains k1 and k2 are between 0 and 2.

12

The derived model for the standing waves can be included in the total model of the mould process. Because of that the block diagram in gure 6.2 is extended with standing waves, this can be seen in gure 7.1.
qo u qi
+

n qn ym
+ +

Stopper

ks

Mould

Sensor

Waves

Figure 7.1. Model of mould process with standing waves. where also the noise n acting before the sensor is shown.

Derivation of total nominal model

In section 7 all the parts of the mould process were modelled separately. All these parts are combined into one nominal model, with nominal stopper gain and mould width will be included in the model. For the gains of the standings waves also nominal values are taken. It can be seen that the block diagram in gure 7.1 has one output: y . The stopper position u is the only input signal. The caster speed vc is known and the other two signals that enter the block diagram, qd and n, are considered as unknown disturbances. The model is eight order: the sensor dynamics is rst order, the mould is a simple integrator and the stopper dynamics is second order. The standing waves are of second order. The model can be written into state space form as follows: d x(t) = Ax(t) + Bu(t) (8) dt y (t) = Cx(t) (9) The matrices A,B,C are given in the matlab le olmodel.mat.

Derivation of uncertainty model

The known uncertainties can be used to test robustness of the controller. The varying stopper gain (50 percent from experiments) and changing mould

13

width (1000-1500mm) can be modeled as multiplicative uncertainty. Which can be written in the form: Pp (s) = (1 + wU (s)U (s))P (s); |U (j )| 1 (10)

in which Pp (s) is the perturbed plant P (s) the nominal plant, wU a weighing function and U any stable transfer function which at each frequency is less than or equal than one in magnitude (or in block diagram see gure 8.1).
Pp

wU

-? c

Figure 8.1. Block diagram of transfer function P with multiplicative uncertainty For nding the weighing function wU we look at the smallest radius lU which is a maximum to all the possible loop transfer functions Pp : lU ( ) = max Pp (j ) P (j ) P (j ) (11)

Pp

Then we choose the rational weight wU which satises: |wU (j )| lU ( ) (12)

Figure 8.2 shows the calculated radii of the perturbed system for 0.5 < KS < 1.5 and 1000 < M W < 1500 and the weight function wI .

14

Bodeplot for finding weight w 100 50 0 50 Magnitude (dB) 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 720

540 Phase (deg)

360

180

180 10
4

10

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (rad/sec)

Figure 8.2. Radii of the perturbed system for 0.5 < KS < 1.5 and 1000 < M W < 1500 weighing function wU (thick black line). The weighing function wU has to be used in the generalized plant model.

References
[1] Kuipers, J.P., Adaptive Mould Level Control for the DSP Caster, Msc report, 8-4-05. [2] Beentjes, V.A.H.J., Reducing Mould-Level Fluctuations during Liquid Core Reduction, Msc report, 24-9-04.

15