Mathematical Modeling and Experimental Validation of an Electric Arc Furnace

The following paper presents an approach to the mathematical modeling of 3-phase AC, electric arc furnace (EAF) processes for control-design and process-optimization purposes. The EAF can be, from the modeling point of view, considered as a combination of electrical, hydraulic, chemical, thermal and several energy-balance sub-processes or sub-models. In this paper the modeling of the electrical and hydraulic submodels is presented in detail, since the two represent a very complex and important sub-system of the complete EAF model. The presented sub-models are obtained in accordance with different mathematical, electrical and mechanical laws. Several parameters, which are necessary to successfully identify the scrap-melting process, were fitted experimentally, using the measured operational data of an 80 MVA AC furnace during different periods of the melting process. Similar data has also been used for the validation of the developed model in typical EAF operating situations. The aim of the presented EAF modeling is to obtain an accurate, robust and realistic mathematical model of the scrap-melting process, which will later be used for control-design purposes, the optimization of the energy consumption and the development of an operator-training simulator. The main advantage of our modeling approach over the existent EAF-related models is a more macroscopic level of modeling, which accurately simulates the electrical and hydraulic processes under different conditions in the EAF.