The frozen bath layer on the sidewalls of aluminum reduction cells plays a crucial role in the process of aluminum production. The stability of the freeze layer is more and more at risk with the trend of increasing line current.We present a non-intrusive thermal based method with which the continuous monitoring of the sidewall freeze is possible. The foundation of this method is a special arrangement of thermocouples, which are embedded in the sidewalls of operating cells. The method is able to follow the thermal load of the sidewalls and feeding the measured signals into a simplified mathematical model, and an estimate of the changing thickness and shape of the freeze layer can be obtained.We give a comparison of freeze profiles measured with traditional mechanical probing and our novel method. The continuous change of the protective freeze layer throughout specific events in the cell is also discussed.
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