We Understand Steel Mill

Misc. Mill Software and Systems

Metal Pass has a long list of mill software packages available, which were developed in the past years during mill software development and improvement. Further software packages also available based on modification of existing packages. A short outline of the the software packages is provided in the following sections. Several offline packages were also featured in a paper Development of Model-Intensive Web-based Rolling Mill Applications (presented in AISTech 2009).

Roll pass software Packages

• Roll pass design suites and roll pass development packages are such as AutoForm, FreeForm, Mill load, Pass Mgr, FDM temperature, Microstructure, etc. A summary of the applications is available.

• Steel wire rod mill roll management system. This is a database application package to help steel mills to effectively select, store, grind and dispose various types/sizes of rolls.

• Various mill process model packages and sub-systems, such as those to predict roll bending and bending force, roll deflection, roll crown, strip center buckle and edge wave, formability, flow stress model coefficients, retained strain, etc.

Level 2 Packages and Support Programs  (Ask a question)

Besides the primary packages of Plate/Steckle Mill Level 2, Strip Mill Level 2 and Wire Rod Mill Level 2, following Level 2 packages are available:

• Steel mill EAF/LMF Level 2 supervisory systems, developed with C/C++ for system implementation, VB for interface design and Oracle database as backend.

• Steel mill Caster Level 2 supervisory systems, developed with C/C++ for system implementation, VB for interface design and Oracle database as backend.

• Level 2 system for a 20-high steel Z-Mill. Features included are roll management, draft schedule generation, force and temperature prediction, and controlled cooling process optimization, etc. Currently this package is under development.

• General Level 2 Mill Supervisory System. This package is created by extracting the common features of the several Level 2 supervisory systems, and developed for general rolling mills. The common features are such as data collection from PLCs, user input and testing laboratory; delay management, parts life management; stock tracking; data organization, data display in the HMI, and HMI interface design; data storage in Oracle (or SQL Server) database and related database design and scripting; data security to prevent it from data loss; and so on. The system can be extended to fit each specific rolling process or other production processes in a steel mill.

• Mill Level 2 model Remote Diagnosis system, allowing users to diagnose and improve their Level 2 models themselves.

Level 3 Models

• Package for predicting rolled product properties. The process models and other algorithms have been developed since 10 years. Recent developments also include the cooperation with some top engineering schools such as Carnegie Mellon University, etc. See an early proposal: Prediction of Rolled Steel Properties.

• Slab size optimization and slab grade optimization

• A program to schedule major production setpoints (maximum/minimum draft for roughing and finishing passes, dropout temperatures, hold temperatures, hold times, etc.)

Industrial Automation System Packages

One Preliminary Proposal for Camber Problem Solution is showed as example.

General Engineering Software Packages

• A Package to display AutoCAD drawing in the company's intranet. The package was developed for a steel plant and is still applied in the steel mill.

• A Package to display Excel documents on the company's intranet. We developed such an application for a steel mill.