Digitalized in-line monitoring of surface defects, oxides, and impurities on rolling ingots, strip, and wire

Important results from the project

The purpose is to generate information to serve as the base for planning and deciding about a continuation in a new project and, to provide increased insight into what digitalization of the process means in targeted application and thereby increase the ability to utilize technology and solutions in future projects. The goal is to have answers on whether selected sensors and measurement strategies work, with sufficient performance, limitations and conditions that must be met, costs associated with the introduction of current solutions in the sections in the production line.

Expected long term effects

The project has carried out all activities in work packages 1 - 6, but the results from the completed experiments do not fully meet expectations as some solutions did not work according to plan. The intended continuation of a FUI project will not get rid of in this situation. We have shown that the laser ultrasound technology works to find welded joints on hotrolled wire, that blue laser scanners for measuring surfaces on ingots and blooms are judged to work well and that Raman spectroscopy for detecting oxides and lubricants works but has too long a sampling time to be used online in production.

Approach and implementation

The work packages have largely been carried out according to plan. We decided to skip the blue laser scanner trials on ingots and blooms after studying results from previous trials on continuous cast steel slabs where we also looked at cracks and indentations. These were judged to provide adequate information. We could not conduct the workshop focusing on digital security as the costs of the trials were higher than budgeted. At the same time, we saw that the results from the experiments meant that we would not proceed with a project in this situation and then the workshop was not as important.