| FLOGEN Contop Design, Decision-Making, Control, Optimization and Automation System Applied at Blast Furnaces Paulo Afonso Gomes1; Marcos De Souza2; Florian Kongoli3; 1FLOGEN TECHNOLOGIES INC., Belo Horizonte, Brazil; 2FLOGEN TECHNOLOGIES INC, Sao Paulo, Brazil; 3FLOGEN TECHNOLOGIES INC., Mont-Royal, Canada; PAPER: 479/Iron/Keynote (Oral) SCHEDULED: 14:50/Fri. 25 Oct. 2019/Ambrosia B (77/RF) ABSTRACT: FLOGEN Technologies Inc. has implemented and commissioned FLOGEN CONTOP, a Design/Decision-Making/Control/Optimization/Automation System at various blast furnaces of pig iron producers in Brazil. The system instantaneously makes a complete optimization of all raw materials, including limestone, silica, air and oxygen volumes, in order to achieve specific targets according to the needs of the company. The main achievements of the implementation of the FLOGEN CONTOP system were the increase of the pig iron production by about 14% and the decrease of total consumption of charcoal (breeze and fines) by about 4%. Additionally, fines injected through the tuyeres were decreased, temperature and composition of slag and pig iron (including Si and P) were better controlled and silica addition as a flux was minimized. An overall instantaneous mass and energy balance helped fix various mechanical and procedural problems in the plant. CONTOP system was also successfully used to determine the annual procurement strategies by predicting various raw material cost-based scenarios related to productivity and fuel consumption in short- and long-term future. CONTOP increased productivity and reduced cost up to the highest designed limit of the technology. CONTOP also changed the way of operating from a reactive wait-the-lab-results-approach to a proactive forecast-and-act approach. |
