Maximizing the transferred power to electric arc furnace for having maximum production

Abstract

In order to increase production of an EAF (electric arc furnace) by reduction of melting time, one can increase transferred power to the EAF. In other words a certain value of energy can be transferred to the EAF in less time. The transferred power to the EAF reduces when series reactors are utilized in order to have stable arc with desired characteristics. To compensate the reduced transferred power, the secondary voltage of the EAF transformer should be increased by tap changing of the transformer. On the other hand, after any tap changing of the EAF transformer, improved arc stability is degraded. Therefore, the series reactor and EAF transformer tap changing should be simultaneously determined to achieve arc with desired characteristics. In this research, three approaches are proposed to calculate the EAF system parameters, by which the optimal set-points of the different series reactor and EAF transformer taps are determined. The electric characteristics relevant to the EAF for the all transformer and series reactor taps with and without SVC (static VAr compensator) are plotted and based on these graphs the optimal set-points are tabulated. Finally, an economic evaluation is also presented for the methods.