Improvement of electrical arc furnace operation with an appropriate model

Electrical arc furnaces are commonly employed in industry to produce molten steel by melting iron and scrap steel. Furnace control is a necessary operation for production optimization. The principal parameters to be controlled are: maximum productivity requirements, minimum power off time, good power quality and safety. The aim of this study is to achieve all these objectives. Hence, because of the stochastic and dynamic behaviour of the arc during the melting process, a proposed model is checked with measurements at an industrial electrical arc furnace. How electrodes position and transformer taps can affect X and R arc function are discussed in detail. This new operating strategy has been determined taking into account Flicker, melting stages and electrode positions. It is shown that optimum efficiency can be reached by the integration of the proposed model in regulation loop. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.