Computerized process control in the steel industry

Abstract

The use of the computer has become an important technological factor in all areas of industrial endeavour, and automatic control of steel-industry processes is no exception. In fact, the steel industry has applied computer control in at least some degree to virtually everyone of its possible process steps. Computer applications have ranged from complete control of almost all new hot rolling mills to a relatively small degree of application in such processes as sintering, coke oven operation, etc. The great majority of such computer applications have been to the supervisory monitoring and/or control of the individual process. There has been considerably less work on direct digital control of these processes or on the on-line overall coordination of the operation of several interrelated processes. Owing to the process development work continually being carried out in the steel industry, as well as to the studies necessary in order to improve the computer control which is already applied, mathematical models of some degree of complexity and faithfulness exist in the literature for nearly all steel industry processes. Many more such models, of course, exist, both in the proprietary information of the steel companies and with the suppliers of process control computers and other control equipment.