NONLINEAR PREDICTIVE CONTROL OF AN ELECTRIC ARC FURNACE

Electric arc furnaces are widely used in the steel industry for melting scrap. The highly energy intensive nature of these operations, coupled with their complexity and typically low level of automation, make them prime candidates for optimization. However, application of open-loop optimal control policies may result in suboptimal or infeasible operation in the presence of model uncertainty and unmeasured disturbances. This paper describes a …