The study of heat transfer characteristics and a real-time synergistic control method on reheating furnace based on physical field regulation

In this paper, the heat transfer characteristics of reheating furnace are studied, revealing the exergy loss distribution of the reheating furnace under varying conditions. Further, a real-time synergistic control method is proposed to optimize the reheating furnace energy efficiency and meet the temperature requirements for hot rolling process. First, in the consideration of the heat radiation, convection and conduction, a temperature distribution model for reheating furnace is established. The exergy loss field is applied to reveal the available energy losses during the slab heating process. Second, the effects of slab thickness, velocity, and the temperature distribution of furnace gas on the on reheating furnace energy efficiency is investigated. Finally, a real-time synergistic control method based on a neural network is proposed for the reheating furnace. It optimizes energy efficiency by reducing the exergy loss, and meets the temperature requirements for the hot rolling process. The result shows that, the energy efficiency of the reheating furnace is improved up to 10.1 % at maximum and the slab reaches the requirement of 1130 °C under varying working conditions. And the average response time of the control method is 14.3 s, realizing the synergistic improvement of reheating furnace energy efficiency and process continuity.