Application of a heuristic search technique for the improvement of spray zones cooling conditions in continuously cast steel billets

The process of casting occupies an important place in the metallurgical industry, and the entire world of the metal user. In the past, the ingot casting-rolling (slabbing, blooming, or billeting) process was commonly used. The continuous casting process has largely replaced this earlier method because of the inherent advantages of energy savings, enhanced productivity, higher yield and reduced costs. However, continuous casting process is not without of its problems. Considerable effort has been made by many researches to establish adequate design, operation and maintenance of continuous casting machine to ensure metallurgical quality of the final product. One of the most severe defects in continuous casting products is concerned with the cracks provoked by improper design of the spray cooling system. The aim of this work is to develop a two dimensional heat transfer model based on the finite difference method in order to calculate the strand temperatures and the solid shell profile along the machine. An Artificial Intelligence heuristic search procedure interacts with the numerical model to determine the improved cooling conditions for the sprays zones of a real continuous caster for the production of quality billets. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.