Nonlinear predictive control of steel slab reheating furnace

In a steel plant, reheating furnaces are used for heating the steel slabs to a temperature of approximately 1200degC before rolling. Reheating furnaces consumes a lot of energy in steel plants. For competitive advantage it is important to improve the heating quality of slab and reduce the energy consumption as much as possible. This paper explores the potential of nonlinear model predictive control techniques to improve the temperature control of the metal slabs in a hot mill reheat furnace, and particularly whether or not these control techniques can be exploited to reduce the energy consumption. An example of actual furnace operation is presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.