Controlling Energy Utilisation at Reheat Furnace Using Time Series Model

In this work, we discuss the steps for establishing a relationship between two time series in an industrial set up. The reheat furnace is the heart of the hot strip mill in a steel plant. In the hot strip mill, steel slabs are heated at high temperature at the reheat furnace before rolling. Furnace temperature depends upon the gas flow rate to burners of the furnace. We make an attempt to establish a relationship between furnace temperature and gas flow rate for controlling energy utilization at the furnace. The data collected on temperature and gas flow rate are time series in nature. We first check whether the order of the two time series are same or not by the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) unit root test. In the event of same order of the series, we establish the relationship between furnace temperature and gas flow rate by an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression method. The relationship is quite satisfactory and can be used for prediction and controlling energy utilisation.