The temperature control problem has become an important concern in heating furnace production. In this paper, an expert fuzzy control strategy is put forward in order to realize the optimum of the temperature in the billet heating furnace, which imports the expert system to the fuzzy control. At the same time, the structure of the expert system and fuzzy controller are introduced. The production rule is adopted by using if-then to express knowledge and a forward reasoning method is used to control rules from forward to backward. The objective is to provide computer-based support for industries specialists or workers. When actual furnace temperature deviates at a certain range by using fuzzy control, while a big deviation uses expert control. It is indicated that the static error is small and the control precision is high. The application results show that the control scheme is feasible and effective.

In reheating furnace, the response of strip temperature to furnace temperature is severely nonlinear and hysteretic. Although it is very important to obtain information on billet temperatures, it is not feasible during furnace operation. Consequently, a billet temperature profile should be estimated. The reheating furnace and roughing mill of a hot strip mill were studied. A novel control method using measurement data gathered from the production line is proposed. The finite volume method was used for discretization of the mathematical model while the slabs are still in the reheating furnace, and combustion gases are introduced as the boundary condition of the transient conduction equation of the slab. Heat transfer characteristics and temperature behavior of the slab is investigated by changing parameters. The application of the method led to considerable savings in fuel and power consumption.