Ladle eye detection using multi-variate image analysis

Search Swinburne Research Bank

Home

List of Titles

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/75513

Check Swinburne's subscriptions for full text availability

Title: Ladle eye detection using multi-variate image analysis
Author(s): Brooks, Geoffrey; Subagyo
Abstract: Inert gas stirring is commonly used in ladle metallurgical operations. The stirring, induced either through porous plugs at the bottom of the furnace or by injection through a submerged lance, is used to achieve homogenization, accelerate chemical reactions and promote the removal of inclusions. The raised region where the gas discharges from the bath during argon stirring is usually called a spout. Where the spout is uncovered by slag, the region is either called the spout eye or ladle eye. The ladle eye region is significant in industrial practice, because it can be the site of undesirable reactions between the metal and air. For example, oxygen dissolved into molten steel from an exposed eye can increase the level of inclusions and work against sulfur removal. Ladle eyes are commonly induced on purpose during alloy addition, as the adding of alloys in the eye prevents losses through entrainment in the slag or entrapment in a slag crust. The eye is generally opened by manually raising the flow rate of the gas through an actuated valve. It can be difficult to achieve tight control of the ladle eye by manual control and eyes are often opened to quite wide diameters (>1m diameter) because of this problem. It is clear that control of spout or ladle eye size is important in operating a ladle operation, particularly, when critical grades of steels are being produced. Though, ladle or spout eye phenomena are important to modern ladle operation, there have been relatively few studies on the subject. This area has recently been a focus of study at McMaster University. This work originally focused on developing a semi-empirical prediction for ladle eye size, as function of flow rate and geometry. This stimulated the authors to design a new system for on line detection of ladle eyes. This work will also be described in this paper.
Publication type: Conference paper
Source: Proceedings of the Electric Furnace and Steelmaking sessions of the Iron and Steel Society's International Technical Conference and Exposition (ISSTech 2003), Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, 27-30 April 2003, pp. 843-852
Publication year: 2003
Keyword(s): Image analysis; Inert gas stirring; Iron steel industry; Ladle eye; Molten steel; Steel refining; Steelmaking
Publisher: Iron and Steel Society
ISBN: 9781886362673, 88636267X
Publisher URL: http://steellibrary.com/PartDetails/tabid/56/partid/080082045048048055045049053054/Default.aspx
Additional information: Subagyo is incorrectly named on the paper as 'Subgayo'. This error has been corrected in this record to facilitate ease of its discovery.
Peer reviewed