Efficient Utilization of Active Carbon in a Blast Furnace through a Black-Box Model-Based Optimizing Control Scheme⁎The project leading to this publication has received funding from the Bundesministerium fur Wirtschaft und Energie under the grant agreement number 03ET1524B. The responsibility for the content of this publication lies solely with the authors. Issue 3 (2021) - Azadi, Pourya
Abstract: the daily operation of blast furnaces in the steel industry is only partly automated. The thermal control of the process is yet carried out manually by the operators. Their decisions may lead to an oversupply of carbon-based fuels, causing surplus production of carbon monoxide. The unexploited excess of carbon monoxide in the iron oxide reduction reactions increases the total carbon supply, hence the cost and the CO2 emissions. To maximize the carbon monoxide efficiency in the reduction reactions, the authors propose a dynamic optimizing control scheme and evaluate its performance by simulation studies using real operational data. The optimizer adjusts the fast dynamics of the blast furnace to prevent the inefficiency of the utilization of carbon monoxide that is influenced by the slow dynamics, subject to process productivity and safety constraints. Simulation results demonstrate that the control scheme can lead to the full conversion of the reduction reactions as well as a reduction of the total carbon supply.