I

Development on Level 2 Systems & Libraries/Packs

No

Name

Description

Client / Employer

1

Cascade Steel EAF Level 2 design and function specification

Joint development with partner (AMI). Level 2 collects data from numerous PLCs and Chemical Lab, populates data in MMI computers to assist operators to run the steel manufacturing. Modeling, scheduling, steelmaking recipes, chemical analysis, personnel, as well as energy and material consumption were the key functions. The MMI applications (Client) were implemented with Visual Basic, while the Level 2 server applications were written with Visual C++ and MFC. The back-end database server was Oracle.

CSRM

2

Cascade Steel LMF Level 2 design and function specification

Similar to EAF Level 2. Some information from EAF was displayed in the LMF Level 2.

CSRM

3

Cascade Steel Caster Level 2 design and function specification

Similar to EAF Level 2. Some summary screens for EAF and LMF were also displayed in this application. There was a graphic display of the cut list of billets, so the user could quickly see how many billets were cut or ready to be cast and cut.

CSRM

4

MFC application for data management of the Level 2 system memory-mapped files (MMF)

Since only a portion of data were sent to the database, more data in the MMFs (Memory-mapped files) were accessed programmatically with customized code.

CSRM

5

Level 2 systems debug and function improvement

After Level 2 systems were put into operation, there was a large amount of work to debug and functional improvements.

CSRM

6

Cascade Steel Level 2/Level 3 Database design and SQL script development

Worked jointly with the development partner to modify the general design to fit the specific plant; helped DBA (who did not have steel industry experience) on design, modification and implementation.

CSRM

7

Development of Level 2 data safety and management systems (to guarantee no data loss)

Data safety management for the Oracle database and data populating to Level 3 business database. Due to the potential that the Oracle database server may lose connection with one of the Level 2 servers and result in data loss, a major design change was made to ensure the data safety. The new design let the Level 2 server hold the SQL scripts for inserting/updating data for up to several days, in case the connection was broken. As long as the system regained the connection, the Level 2 server would immediately re-run the SQL scripts and send data into the database. The DBA could also manually run the SQL scripts to send the data. Another change was to send data into Level 3 database server.

CSRM

8

Development of Level 2/Level 3 data quality and history data management system

Oracle data management system, with which engineers and/or operators can read and modify data was improved, so, if any modifications occurred, the system moved the original data to the history tables.

CSRM

9

Cascade Steel rolling mill Level 2 system design and function specification

The design took references of the Meltshop Level 2 and Danieli Level 2, and proposals on the Level 2 from ABB and Morgan, etc. Functions include: (1) Data collection (PLC, testing lab, user input, Meltshop Level 2, etc.), data communications (between Mill 1 and Mill 2, and between mills and meltshop); (2) Rolling process modeling, roll pass schedule autoload and improvement through learning, etc. Project started right after the Meltshop Level 2 project, but was not completely implemented.

10

Oregon Steel Mills Level 2 system study

Examination of OSM's Level 2 system, through source code study, log file access and database survey, to find potential weaknesses for improvement. Time spent was about 4 months. Read through source code (about 1 million lines), diagrammed system functions and proposed numerous improvements.

OSM

11

OSM Level 2 force model problem survey to identify source of the force error in certain products

Identification of reasons for the force error in certain model grades, such as the hard and thin products. This work started after the 4 months of basic study of the Level 2 system.

OSM

12

Design of flow stress model coefficients for 2000 model grades and for three temperature regions in each model grade

6000 sets of coefficients (influence factors from material, temperature, strain and strain rate) were calculated for 2000 model grades and three temperature regions in each grade. This project was to fix the logical problems in the learning for the existing Level 2 system. The coefficients were used as the reference values for the adaptive learning.

OSM

13

Calculation for existing flow stress coefficients for every model grade, based on the data matrix of the intermediate factors stored in the Level 2 database

6000 sets of coefficients (influence factors from material, temperature, strain and strain rate) were calculated for 2000 model grades and three temperature regions in each grade. This project was to analyze the weakness of the existing learning procedure and data, in order to provide the fix. Because the Level 2 system only holds some intermediate data, the flow stress coefficients needed to be calculated.

OSM

14

Creation of the force model for the resume pass (the pass right after the hold of steel in the air)

Model was modified to reflect the metallurgical changes (precipitation, recovery, recrystallization and grain growth, etc.) incurred in the holding pass before the resume pass. Those changes caused up to 40% force error before the fix.

OSM

15

Expansion of the flow stress formula valid range (for the passes with draft below 10% or over 30%)

OSM's flow stress model was not valid for the strain below 0.1, and was inaccurate for strain over 0.4. Modification was made to eliminate/reduce the errors in these regions.

OSM

16

Development of a metallurgical engine to improve quality of Level 2 modeling and Level 3 scheduling (proposal to the National Science Foundation of USA)

A concept to develop a metallurgical engine for supporting both Level 3 production scheduling and Level 2 production execution was developed. Functions include: (1) for Level 3 to select slab with low cost and sufficient quality; (2) for Level 3 to schedule temperatures for reheating, holding and controlled cooling, and the time length for the hold; (3) for Level 2 to optimize draft distribution and controlled rolling for both strength and shape, (4) to predict and guarantee the rolled product property.

Metal Data

17

Proposal to develop next generation of steel mill Level 2 system, with 4-tier architecture, metallurgical consideration and intelligent learning (30 pages, initially for the National Science Foundation of USA)

Currently in the market, no Level 2 system considers the metallurgical processes such as the recrystallization, grain size, retained strain, etc. The new generation of Level 2 should have this feature. In general, it should have new software engineering features and intelligent learning (Neural network, expert system, etc.)

Metal Data

111

NISCO Plate Mill Level 2 Grade File Improvement

A high performance Level 2 model usually uses about 2000 model grades for a plate mill, and correspondingly, there are about 2000 grades files. Each grade file holds large number of basic data such as metallurgical and physical properties. High-quality data in every grade file is critical for not only Level 2 quality but also various metallurgical operations. This project is ongoing until March 2010.

NISCO