Modeling and Temperature Control of an Industrial Furnace

Abstract: A linear model of an annealing furnace is developed using a black-box system identification approach, and used when testing three different control strategies to improve temperature control. The purpose of the investigation was to see if it was possible to improve the temperature control while at the same time  decrease the switching frequency of the  burners. This will lead to a more efficient process as well as less maintenance, which has both economic and environmental benefits. The estimated model has been used to simulate the furnace with both the existing controller and possible new controllers such as a split range controller and a model predictive controller (MPC). A split range controller is a control strategy which can be used when more than one control signal affect the output signal, and the control signals have different range. The main advantage with MPC is that it can take limitations and constraints into account for the controlled process, and with the use of integer programming, explicitly account for the discrete switching behavior of the burners. In simulation both new controllers succeed in decreasing the switching and the MPC also improved the temperature control. This suggest that the control of the furnace can be improved by implementing one of the evaluated controllers.