At the beginning of 2011, Staro Process Control in conjunction with Allied Furnace Consultants has successfully launched the fourth version of its Furnace Monitoring System (FMS). FMS assists the operator in decision making by providing accurate predictions of the refractory lining wear, shape of the crucible, and heat transfer through the furnace shell.

The latest version of FMS is based on the Microsoft.NET Framework 3.5 and has many new features providing the operator with different views of the furnace and the changing of raw data into useful information.

Even though the core concept on which the program is based remains the same, the user interface has now been completely re-engineered. This time we focussed on ease of use and meaningful representation of field data. The back-end of the program has not been forgotten either. The server component has been re-designed utilising Microsoft SQL Server 2008 for data storage, which gives greater flexibility in terms of data storage, backup, and retrieval. Several months of historical data can easily be retrieved for analytical purposes in a matter of seconds.

This new version of the Furnace Monitoring System is already running at one of South Africa’s leading ferromanganese smelters, monitoring two of their newly rebuilt submerged arc electric furnaces.  Below are some screenshots showing the different components of FMS V4.

3D Model

The 3D Model of the furnace can be rotated and zoomed in 3D space providing an excellent view of the crucible and refractory lining shapes.

3D slices are generated by pointing and clicking with the mouse.

Thermocouple and electrode status information can also be displayed in the 3D window by hovering the mouser pointer over the different 3D objects.

Furnace Overview

The Furnace Overview gives a quick summary of the current condition of the different components being monitored.

Heat Flux Matrix

The Heat Flux Matrix shows the amount of energy passing through the furnace shell. This can be used for efficient electrode position estimation.

Trend Screen

With FMS V4 comes new, easy to use, drag-drop Trends.

All data points being monitored can be trended using the new drag-drop control. It is as easy as specifying the time range and dragging the data point onto the control.