EUROPEAN STEEL TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATION DAYS 2017 - ESTAD 2017

In a competitive environment, innovative products which need very minimal investments can help in improving OPEX and thereby helping staying competitive. This paper presents some of such innovative products which SMS group has developed by focusing on energy costs, asset utilization, productivity and material costs. X Pact® FEOS X Pact® FEOS is a furnace energy optimization system for EAFs. It consists of various modules which help operator in  tracking the thermal state of the furnace and accordingly control the tap positions for the transformers,  starting the carbon injection at an optimal foaming slag,  control the amount of injection material and  taking a holistic view of energy requirements of the furnace and optimizing it. By this, X Pact® FEOS reduces energy and material costs and additionally improves productivity. X Pact® Gas Cleaning Assist The X-Pact® Gas Cleaning Assist enables precise control of the volume flows at every emission point and reduces pressure loss of the whole system by considering the process stage at every emission point. It uses a robust mathematical algorithm which takes into account the actual duct layout and construction. By this, X Pact® Gas Cleaning Assist reduces energy costs while fulfilling environmental requirements. X Pact® Gas Cleaning Control Basic Oxygen Furnaces equipped with wet gas cleaning systems, suction is enabled by an induced draft fan which runs at constant speed during the oxygen blowing period. The X Pact® Gas Cleaning Control uses feedback from the total process like oxygen flow rate, opening at the converter mouths and material feed-rates to set the ID fan speed at its most efficient point and then for fine control the Venturi throat is adjusted. The X-Pact® Gas Cleaning Control ensures that energy saving is there while cleaning efficiency of the gas is maintained. X Pact® AutoTapping The use of X-Pact® AutoTapping in Basic Oxygen Furnaces results in optimized and consistent tapping conditions irrespective of current age of the lining. It also saves time and increase productivity of the tapping operators. X Pact® Ladle Management The X Pact® Ladle Management helps to reduce the refractory costs, preheating fuel costs and related labor costs. The thermal loss calculation saves  cost of extra heating in ladle furnace  additional process delays (incurred in delivering steel at right temperature to downstream unit),  metallurgical disadvantages of receiving steel at caster at too low or too high temperature and  occasional costs of ladle breakout due to inability to judge the residual life of the ladle. X Pact® Laser Off-Gas The In-situ X Pact® Laser Off-Gas reduces the maintenance requirements of the traditional extractive type of gas analyzers which are typically used and increase reliability of this instrument. AE-Reg Advanced Electrode Regulator Customer Benefits : - less energy consumption(4,0%) - shorter power-on time - less electrode breakages - less carbon for EAF slag foaming practice Synergy Charge – Advanced Process Control for the Scrap Yard - Real time position tracking of scrap yard cranes and cars - Tracking & recording of each single Scrap pick movement - Business Intelligence Tool to analyse scrap yard efficiency Conyard – Advanced Yard management - Mobile access via tablets - 3D presentation of products present in the storage yard - Seamless integration with upstream areas