Radar detection is an advanced method for monitoring a blast furnace's inner burden surface shape, which is an important factor that largely affects the production efficiency of the iron-making process. In this paper, a radar detection-based model for the prediction of burden surface shape was developed for assisting operators in developing a charging strategy. The data used are composed of both the detection and controlling records of a real, working-state blast furnace obtained by mechanical swing radar and a furnace database system, respectively. By defining and analyzing the stacking density function, the physical meanings of the modeling principles were revealed. Combined with the classical force charging trajectory sub-model and detection-driven burden descent calculation, the proposed model adopts Gaussian radius basis functions to approximate the stacking mechanism of the burden charging process. The parameter identification results show that the model can approximate the burden surface radius profile well. Compared with the results obtained for coke layers, the parameters' ranges for the ore layers are narrower. Performance comparison shows that the proposed model has the advantages of higher prediction accuracy for both local details and global shape over the classical polygonal line model.

The distribution of burden layers is a vital factor that affects the production of a blast furnace. Radars are advanced instruments that can provide the detection results of the burden surface shape inside a blast furnace in real time. To better estimate the burden layer thicknesses through improving the prediction accuracy of the burden descent during charging periods, an innovative data-driven model for predicting the distribution of the burden surface descent speed is proposed. The data adopted were from the detection results of an operating blast furnace, collected using a mechanical swing radar system. Under a kinematic continuum modeling mechanism, the proposed model adopts a linear combination of Gaussian radial basis functions to approximate the equivalent field of burden descent speed along the burden surface radius. A proof of the existence and uniqueness of the prediction solution is given to guarantee that the predicted radial profile of the burden surface can always be calculated numerically. Compared with the plain data-driven descriptive model, the proposed model has the ability to better characterize the variability in the radial distribution of burden descent speed. In addition, the proposed model provides prediction results of higher accuracy for both the future surface shape and descent speed distribution.

No abstract