This paper presents a new application of a genetic-fuzzy control system which controls the input energy to a three phase electric arc furnace. Graphite electrodes are used to convert electrical energy into heat via phase electric arcs. Con-stant arc length is desirable as it implies steady energy transfer from the graphite electrodes to the metallic charge in the furnace bath. With the charge level constantly changing, the electrodes must be able to adjust for the arc length to remain constant. A fuzzy PI controller tuned with genetic algorithms has been developed to be responsible for the ver-tical adjustment of the electrode tip displacement according to specified set-points to ensure that the arc lengths remain as constant as possible. The simulation results show that the system performances are satisfactory using the proposed method.
S. A. Billings and H. Nicholson, “Modelling a Three- Phase Electric Arc Furnace: A Comparative Study of Control Strategies,” Applied Mathematical Modelling, Vol. 1, No. 7, December 1977, pp. 355- 361. doi:10.1016/0307-904X(77)90043-9
C. R. Taylor, “Electric Furnace Steelmaking,” Iron and Steel Society, 1985.
S. A. Billings, F. M. Boland and H. Nicholson, “Electric Arc Furnace Modelling and Control,” Automatica, Vol. 15, No. 2, March 1979, pp. 137-148. doi:10.1016/0005-1098(79)90065-7
P. Brown and R. D. Langman, “Simulation of Closed- Loop Energy Control Applied to Arc Furnaces,” Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, Vol. 205, No. 8, August 1967, pp. 837-847.
J. Celada, “Electrical Analysis of the Steel Melting Arc Furnace,” Iron Steel Engineer, Vol. 70, No. 5, May 1993, pp. 35-39.
B. Danai and J. D. Lavers, “Statistical Analysis of Electric Arc Furnace Parameter Variations,” IEE Proceedings of Generation, Transmission and Distribution, Vol. 132, No. 2, March 1985, pp. 82-93.
R. C. Dugan, “Simulation of Arc Furnace Power Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Industry and Application, Vol. IA-16, No. 6, November 1980, pp. 813-818. doi:10.1109/TIA.1980.4503877
E. Acha, A. Semlyen, N. Rajakovic, A harmonic domain computational package for nonlinear problems and its application to electricarcs, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery 5(July(3)) (1990) 1390-1397.
J. G. Mayordomo, L. F. Beites, R. Asensi, M. Izzeddine, L. Zabala and J. Amantegui, “A New Frequency Domain Arc Furnace Model for Iterative Harmonic Analysis,” IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 12, No. 4, October 1997, pp. 1771-1778.
H. Schau and D. Stade, “Mathematical Modeling of Three Phase Arc Furnaces,” Proceedings of International Conference on Harmonics in Power System VI, Bologna, September 1994, pp. 422-428.
S. Varadan, E. B. Makram and A. A. Girgis, “A New Time Domain Voltage Source Model for an Arc Furnace Using EMTP,” IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 11, No. 3, January 1996, pp. 1685-1691. doi:10.1109/61.517535
S. Varadan, E. B. Makram and A. A. Girgis, “A New Time Domain Voltage Source Model for an Arc Furnace Using EMTP,” IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 11, No. 3, July 1996, pp. 1685-1691. doi:10.1109/61.517535
Y.-J. Liu, G. W. Chang and R.-C. Hong, “Curve-Fitting -Based Method for Modeling Voltage–Current Characteristic of an Ac Electric Arc Furnace,” Elsevier, Electric Power Systems Research, Vo. 80, No. 7, July 2010, pp. 807-814.
A. Sadeghian and J. D. Lavers, “Application of Radial Basis Functions to Model Electric Arc Furnaces,” Proceedings of IEEE International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN’99), Vol. 6, July, 1999, pp. 3996- 4001.
F. Wang, Z. Jin, Z. Zhu and X. Wang, “Application of Extended Kalman Filter to the Modeling of Electric Arc Furnace for Power Quality Issues,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Neural Networks and Brain (ICNN&B’05), Vol. 12, No. 2, October, 2005, pp. 991- 996.
A. Sadeghian and J. D. Lavers, “Dynamic Reconstruction of Nonlinear v–i Characteristic in Electric Arc Furnaces Using Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Rule-Based Networks,” Applied Soft Computing, Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2011, pp. 1448-1456
F. Janabi-Sharifi, G. Jorjani and I. Hassanzadeh, “Using Adaptive Neurofuzzy Inference System in Developing an Electrical Arc Furnace Simulator,” Proceedings of the IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, 2005, pp. 1210-1215.
J. Sjoberg, Q. Zhang, L. Ljung, A. Benveniste, B. Delyon, P. Glorennec, H. Hjal-marsson and A. Juditsky, “Nonlinear Black-Box Modeling in System Identification: A Unified Overview,” Automatica, Vol. 31, No. 12, December 1995, pp. 1691-1724. doi:10.1016/0005-1098(95)00120-8
R. Collantes-Bellido and T. Gomez, “Identification and Modelling of a Three Phase Arc Furnace for Voltage Disturbances Imulation,” IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 12, No. 4, October 1997, pp. 1812-1817.
A. S. Hauksdottir, T. Soderstrom, Y. P. Thorfinnsson and A. Gestsson, “System Identification of a Three-Phase Submerged-Arc Ferrosilicon Furnace,” IEEE Transactions on Control System Technology, Vol. 3, No. 4, December 1995, pp. 377-387. doi:10.1109/87.481962
E. Acha and M. Madrigal, “Power system harmonics,” John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2001.
“Electric Arcs and Flicker,” January 2004. http://www. unino. robicon. com
A. E. Emanual and J. A. Orr, “An Improved Method of Simulation of the Arc Voltage Current Characteristics,” Proceedings of Ninth International Conference on Harmonics and Quality of Power, Vol. 1, October 2000, pp. 148-154. doi:10.1109/ICHQP.2000.897015
S. S. Venkata and B. Lee, “Development of Enhanced Electric Arc Furnace Models for Transient Analysis,” 2004. http://www.psere.wise.edu
O. Ozgen and A. Abur, “Development of an Arc Furnace Model for Power Quality Studies,” Power Engineering Society Summer Meeting) IEEE, Vol. 1, July 1999, pp. 507-555.
T. Zheng and E. B. Makram, “An Adaptive Arc Furnace Model,” IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, July 2000.
K. J. Tseng, Y. Wang and D. M. Vilathgamuwa, “An Experimentally Verified Hybrid CASSIE-Mayr Electric Arc Model for Power Electronics Simulations,” IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Vol. 12, No. 3, May 1997, pp. 429-436. doi:10.1109/63.575670
G. C. Montanari, M. Loggini and A. Cavallini, “Arc- Furnace Model for the Study of Flicker Compensation in Electrical Networks,” IEEE Transaction on Power Delivery, Vol. 9, No. 4, October 1994, pp. 2026-2036.
H. Nicholson and R. Roebuck, “Simulation and Control of Electrode Position Controllers for Electric Arc Furnaces,” Automatica, Vol. 8, No. 6, November 1972, pp. 683-693.
E. Scholtz, “Modelling for Control of a Steckel Hot Rolling Mill,” Master’s Dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 1999.
M. Peens, “Modelling and control of an electrode system for a three phase electric arc furnace,” Master’s dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 2004.
D. E. Goldberg, “Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization, and Machine Learning,” Addison-Wesley, Reading, 1989.
K. C. NgY and D. J. Li, “Genetic Algorithms Applied to Fuzzy Sliding Mode Controller Design,” First International Conference on Genetic Algorithms in Engineering Systems: Innovations and Applications, Sheffield, 1995, pp. 220-225.
R. Dimeo and K. Y. Lee, “The Use of a Genetic Algorithm in Power Plant Control System Design,” IEEE Proceeding of the 34th Conference on Decision & Control, 1995, pp. 737-742.
Proceedings of First IEE/IEEE International Conference on Genetic Algorithms in Engineering System, Innovations and Applications, Sheffied, September, pp. 220-225.
A. Sadeghiana and J. D. Lavers, “Dynamic Reconstruction of Nonlinear v–i Characteristic in Electricarc Furnaces Using Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Rule-Based Networks,” Applied Soft Computing, Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2011, pp. 1448-1456. doi:10.1016/j.asoc.2010.04.016
F. Janabi-Sharifi and G. Jorjani, “An Adaptive System for Modeling and Simulation of Electrical Arc Furnaces,” Control Engineering Practice 17, Elsevier, 2009, pp. 1202-1219.