RT Conference Proceedings T1 New sensor for Electric Arc Furnaces arc stability control A1 Vicente, Asier A1 Velasco, Arturo A1 Linares, Miguel A1 Picon, Artzai A1 Arteche, Jose Antonio A1 Sainz, Jose Angel AB During the last decades the strategy to define the optimal Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF) electrical operational parameters has changed several times. Probably one of the major advances has been the development of the foaming slag practice, which allows operating with very high-power factors on the last stages of melting process ensuring higher energy consumption efficiency and reducing the electrode consumption. As 90% of steel using electric route is made in Alternating Current (AC) EAFs, and due to the fact that the arc stability is higher in AC because of shorter arc lengths, most of the efforts done to increase the arc efficiency have been conducted on AC technologies such as Rogowski coils [1] and acoustic signal processing techniques [2]. However, for Direct Current (DC) Electric Arc Furnaces, there are few certificated commercial systems that have proved their validity as voltage regulators to optimize arc stability so far and all of them required high CAPEX and complex sensor installation and integration. In this work we analyse the magnetic field variation vector around the DC EAF and their relationship with the arc stability. This have allowed the development of a cheap stability control system with no installation or integration requirements easily implementable to any EAF. The solution described is based on a non-intrusive and low cost Hall-effect sensor that can be mounted neighbouring the furnace's electrical bars. The sensor captures the magnetic field magnitude and analyses the acquired signal providing an arc stability factor metric. The calculated stability factor serves as a closed loop signal to the electrical regulation PLC for controlling the arc voltage, ensuring the most convenient arc length that guaranties non-instabilities. The new system was developed and industrially installed at two different DC EAF's in ArcelorMittal in Spain demonstrating a clear improvement in the overall energy efficiency of the melting process. Several tests were also carried out in other ArcelorMittal AC EAF in Spain proving the capability of this technology for both types of furnaces. PB Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia SN 9788898990146 YR 2018 FD 2018 LA eng NO Vicente , A , Velasco , A , Linares , M , Picon , A , Arteche , J A & Sainz , J A 2018 , New sensor for Electric Arc Furnaces arc stability control . in ICS 2018 - 7th International Congress on Science and Technology of Steelmaking : The Challenge of Industry 4.0 . ICS 2018 - 7th International Congress on Science and Technology of Steelmaking: The Challenge of Industry 4.0 , Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia , 7th International Congress on Science and Technology of Steelmaking, ICS 2018 , Venice , Italy , 13/06/18 . NO conference NO Publisher Copyright: © ICS 2018 - 7th International Congress on Science and Technology of Steelmaking: The Challenge of Industry 4.0. All rights reserved. NO Partial financial support of this work by the Basque Government (Hazitek AURRERAB ZE-2017/00009 and FASIN ZE-2016/0016 Projects) is gratefully acknowledged. DS TECNALIA Publications RD 29 jul 2024