Empowerment with knowledge— toward the intelligent mold for the continuous casting of steel billets

Abstract

A never-ending challenge to the competitiveness of the steel industry is the application of knowledge on the shop floor where, finally, productivity and quality are realized. The impedi-ments to the effective implementation of knowledge are largely people related and range from the level of education of the work force to entrenched attitudes of management. The develop-ment of the continuous-casting process for the production of steel billets, upon which this lecture focuses, is but one example. Looking back over 20 years, it is clear that the billet industry, in its infancy, was in a state of confusion, operating without casting standards coupled to quality, such that individual companies had developed very different practices. Research over 2 decades has established the knowledge base for the continuous casting of quality billets and set much needed standards for the design, operation, and maintenance of casting machines. The challenge now is in knowledge transfer and implementation with the aid of expert systems. Thus, the expert system for continuous casting and the concept of the intelligent billet casting mold have evolved to transcend other forms of knowledge transfer like publications and short courses. The intelligent mold effectively transfers knowledge on line to the shop floor through the combi-nation of sensors (thermocouples and load cells), signal recognition based on years of research, mathematical models of heat flow in the solidifying shell and mold, understanding of the mech-anisms of quality problems, and the formulation of a response to a given set of casting con-ditions, all controlled by an expert system. In this lecture, the drive to develop, transfer, and implement knowledge on the continuous casting of quality billets is explored. Lessons for the future are drawn from successes, failures, and frustrations in the past.