Specialised Topic

Shaogang - CISDI’s new benchmark for intelligent steel manufacturing

Link: CISDI’s Intelligent Ironmaking

Committed to developing intelligent ironmaking products, CISDI has created innovative solutions for flow, technology and management through big data, internet of things and artificial intelligence.

The company’s intelligent products help solve technical issues and production problems, reduce hot metal costs and improve labour productivity. They create a new model of integrated ironmaking production.

1) Ironmaking Centralised Control Centre

Core values:

China’s steel industry has welcomed a new first - the application of an integrated intelligent control platform and large-scale long-distance centralised control technology for ironmaking. Created by CISDI, the centre controls blast furnace ironmaking and its upstream procedures – sintering, coking and stockyard - and combines the work of dozens of central control rooms.

By re-defining a steelworks’ organisational structure, the centre fulfills six roles – integrated control, intensive operation, root safety, standardised logistics, flow-based manufacturing and flat organisation. 

Labour productivity can be increased by 20 to 40 per cent.

Highlights:

By utilising internet of things, machine vision and artificial intelligence, the centre can remotely interlink with site production.

The centre can also render dynamic assessments on ironmaking production status, intelligently diagnose critical production problems and make accurate positions and scientific decisions.

The centralised control centre for Baosteel Shanghai’s blast furnace

2) Ironmaking Integrated Intelligent Control Platform

Core values:

In response to issues caused by lengthy production procedures, the frequent variations of parameters and the influence of multiple factors, by focusing on flow control and KPI evaluation the platform keeps track of information (from stockyard to sintering, stockhouse and hot metal tapping).

The chemical compositions and lab properties of each batch of raw materials charged into the blast furnace can be evaluated.

The integrated ores proportioning model continues the big data analysis of raw materials batching and preparation, and effect laws on production.

Hot metal costs can be reduced by $7.5-15 USD per tonne, a dynamic control for winning the most competitive hot metal cost. The blast furnace can be kept running smoothly and stably with an optimised, scientifically proportioned supply of ores.

Highlights:

Intelligent control of ironmaking production flow

Optimised logistics and supplies, enabling storage and production to interact

Employs big data mining technology to get the most competitive hot metal cost in a dynamic control

Screen shot of big data analysis for production

A screenshot of production status diagnosis

3) Intelligent Ironmaking Plant

Core values:

Over 20 mathematical models, developed by using big data and blast furnace simulation, cover the entire ironmaking and upstream process flows, enhancing ironmaking production visualisation and digital levels.

As an example, intelligent ironmaking models in the blast furnace area have made production smoother. Fluctuations caused by operational misjudgments are now seldom seen. As a result, the fuel ratio has been reduced by 2 to 10 per cent and 2 to 3 per cent savings on gas volume have been achieved from using a hot stove combustion model. Accuracy of forecasting blast furnace heat is now at 89.4 per cent as a minimum.

Intelligent features:

Blast furnace ironmaking plant:

●     Hot stove automatic combustion model

●     Heat and hot metal Si content forecast model

●     Operating profile optimisation model

●     Cohesive zone model

●     Intelligent control model for hearth long service life

●     Molten iron digital control model

●     Distribution optimisation control model

●     Safe hot metal tapping model

Sintering plant:

●     Excise control system

●     End point control model

Coking plant:

●     Coke oven temperature intelligent control model

Screen shot of the blast furnace digital control model

Searching the optimised profile via a mirror model

Screen shot of the sintering production monitor

The model for optimising coal batching at a coking plant

4) Ironmaking Industrial Data Centre

CISDI plans to create an ironmaking tech-ecosystem which will be an industrial-level big data center.

To that end, an industrial big data centre has been created on CISDI’s open and integrated steel industrial internet platform.

The data for more than 10 blast furnaces, in China and overseas, has been switched to the platform.

When the tech-ecosystem is complete, it will provide steel enterprises with multi-dimensional benchmarks and information for diagnosis and decision-making.

As it can be seen from the data available from China, South and South-east Asia and South America, a sharing economy is now forming.

Diagram of an ironmaking industrial data centre

The structure for CISDI’s steel industrial internet platform