Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) steelmaking generates fumes that must be captured
for economic and environmental reasons. The fumes exhaust control at the EAF must
be adapted to the process in order to fulfil the steel plant requirements and to meet
the environmental regulations. It is in this context that Irsid has implemented, on
6 EAF (5 in France and 1 in Belgium), a strategy of advanced control associated to a
representative instrumentation of the fumes emissions. An on-line defect detection
algorithm is added to the pressure control in order to improve its reliability.
Latest results obtained in Le Creusot have shown that the fumes exhaust control has a
direct impact on the EAF ratios with a reduction of energy consumption, a reduction
of electrode consumption and a reduction of the amount of dust recovered in the filters.