Products - Mould Breakout Detection System

       The Client is a mammoth Steel Plant and is an international player in the manufacturing of quality steel. The problem – loss to the tune of 25 lakhs for every “breakout” that occurs, with about ten breakouts occurring every year per caster. A “breakout” in a steel plant occurs when, during the steel casting process, molten metal sticks to the surface of the caster instead of flowing smoothly out of the caster. The system is a Data Acquisition and Control System meant to detect the possibility of “breakout” and immediately slow down the casting process to allow the molten metal to cool properly.
      To detect the occurrence of the breakout, the system acquires many signals like casting speed, caster surface temperature etc. and runs an algorithm to determine whether breakout has occurred or not. Based of this decision it activates some digital and analog outputs to bring down the casting speed. The software for the data acquisition and control including the algorithm execution has been written in C++ and runs on the Real-Time Operating System OS9.
      The execution of the algorithm, acquisition of data, breakout detection can be visualized on the PC. The process visualization software is partly developed using Intellution Fix32 and partly in MS VC++ 6.0. This software also generates online alarms against set limits and has provision to log acquired data and trend it at a later time. Communication between the PC and the VME is done through the MODBUS protocol over Ethernet.