Investment in our future

ASRA – Adaptive control of steel strip in hot rolling mills based on high-precision radar signal processing techniques

Overview

When steel or aluminum strip is processed in hot rolling mills, the width of the material can only be specifically controlled in the roughing mill. In downstream processes, this targeted influencing of the width is either not possible at all or possible only to a limited extent, which is why the material usually has to be produced with a certain excess width, which then needs to be trimmed and scrapped later on during cold processing. By reintroducing the trimmed scrap into the production cycle, the width accuracy that can be achieved in the hot rolling mill has a significant, direct influence on the resource efficiency, CO2 balance, and costs of the manufacturing process.

Attaining the desired strip width with a high degree of accuracy requires not only the ability to influence the width using suitable actuators and an appropriate control system, but also a sufficiently precise, reliable and cost-effective measuring system, which is able to function permanently under the harsh ambient conditions (water, vapor, and extreme heat) of a steel roughing mill. Following unsuccessful trials in this area involving various different technologies, single-channel radar systems for measuring the width have recently been employed in steel roughing mills. However, the limitation of such systems, which are restricted to just one measuring channel, is that ski ends on head and tail of the strip as well as the uneven contour of the strip have a negative impact on the accuracy of the measurements, therefore the use of the width signal for feedback width control is not a straightforward option.

Runtime

July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2022

The ASRA joint research project is funded and promoted as part of the "Produktion.NRW" leading market competition.

Objective

The objective is to design and build a measuring device that enables the precise mapping of the contour of the
rolling stock as well as real-time, adaptive control system based on the measured contour data, so that deviations
in the width on the head and tail ends of the material can be reduced, thereby improving accuracy levels in
maintaining the desired width.

At the same time, the measuring range of the system should cover the full potential height range of the ski ends,
in order to achieve a high degree of measuring accuracy irrespective of the local height of the strip edge

Contact

Thorsten Huge

Huge, Thorsten

Research & Development

+49 2733 29 1719
SMS group GmbH
Wiesenstraße 30
57271 Hilchenbach-Dahlbruch
Germany

This project is funded by the European Union and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.