UNSTEADY MODEL-BASED PREDICTIVE CONTROL OF CONTINUOUS STEEL CASTING BY MEANS OF A VERY FAST DYNAMIC SOLIDIFICATION MODEL ON A GPU

摘要

The aim of the paper is to develop and test a model-based predictive control system for continuous casting of steel billets with an emphasis on unsteady casting situations, often accompanied by abrupt changes in the casting speed. A very fast dynamic solidification model was developed for this purpose. This fully 3D model runs on graphics processing units, GPUs, and it is significantly faster than the recently used commercial models. Therefore, a scenario approach can be utilized, which means that the control system, in real time, predicts and evaluates the thermal behavior of cast billets for various scenarios of the control strategy. The concept of the effective casting speed was utilized for the proposed control strategies. The results show that the developed control system can provide an effective control of the casting process and brings new control possibilities for continuous steel casting.