Vibration Style Ladle Slag Detection Method based on Discrete Wavelet

Decomposition
Dengfeng Chen, Haiyan Xiao, Qichun Ji
School of Information and Control Engineering, Xian University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an, Shanxi, 710055
E-mail: chdengf@163.com
Abstract: The purity of molten steel is a crucial factor of steel products' quality. Detection and removal of slag carryover
from the molten metal is an important task in steel making procedure, especially in the continuous casting process.
Researchers have applied several different slag carryover detection methods to solve the slag carry-over since 1980s,
such as electromagnetic coils method of AMEPA, Infrared thermal infrared imaging method, supersonic wave method
and vibration method, which are all non-contact methods and some other contact type slag detection methods. In this
paper, a non-contact vibration analysis slag detection method is presented. The main principle of this method is based on
the vibration variety of ladle shroud between pure molten steel fluid and slag carryover fluid. The experiences of steel
making operators have proven the differences of vibration wave in continuous casting process. The signal data gathered
from produce field is analyzed by power spectral density (PSD) and discrete wavelet decomposition (DWD). The
experiment results are given, the vibration wave feature of slag carryover is distinctive. Which verified the validity of
vibration slag detection method.
Key Words: Slag Detection, Steel Making, Vibration, Power Spectral Density, Discrete Wavelet Decomposition.

INTRODUCTION

Continuous casting is an important process in steel making

procedure. In this process, steel is poured several times
from one vessel into another. As shown in Figure 1.

molten steel. To keep the cleanness of the steel, the slag

arises during each step of the continuous casting process
must not be transferred into the next vessel. Slag carry over
from ladle to tundish has a serious effect on casting
operations, with negative impact on yield, quality and
safety. During the sequence casting process, slag carry over
leads to a build-up of slag in the tundish. This increased the
risk of nozzle clogging in the casters, sliver defects in the
cast strand, reduced the tundish refractory life and cause an
increase in the inclusion content of the steel products.

Fig 1. Part of the production flow of continuous casting machine

Molten steel pouring from a ladle into a tundish through

ladle shroud. The ladle has a side wall of refractory lining
which adapted to be contacted by molten steel. The tundish
is an copper alloy intermediate holding container lined with
refractory bricks. Ladle shroud is a cylinder with an internal
refractory lining. A metal arm connects to the ladle shroud
and removes the ladle shroud during ladles changing, this
arm is called ladle shroud manipulator arm. Then molten
steel pour into the water cooled copper mould. The lock
gate and the slide gate control the flow of molten steel
between the ladle and the tundish, the slide gate control the
flow of molten steel between the tundish and the mould[1].
In the continuous casting process, on top of the molten steel
is a layer of slag. Slag is a by-product of the smelting ore
process. It is usually a mixture of metal oxides and silicon
dioxide. Slag is used to reduce the re-oxidation ratio of the

In the past years various types of methods have been

developed for slag detection, such as visual observation,
tare weight monitoring, rate of teeming change,
electromagnetic methods, opto-electronic monitoring of
stream surface, infrared thermal imaging methods,
supersonic wave methods, vibration analysis of the ladle
shroud, etc.
Visually observation detect slag carry over method is
highly dependent on the operator experience. The carry
over slag amount is unstable before detection. Monitoring
the tare weight is easy to be implemented, but its accuracy
relies on correct ladle, ladle cover and slag weight
estimates. The pure steel and the slag have different density,
monitor the variation in the rate of ladle weight change, slag
carry over can be found. This method can lead to errors at
low teeming rates and false alarms by the movements of the
ladle flow control device or the ladle. The main
shortcoming of opto-electronic method is that the core of
the stream cannot be observed, large amounts of slag can
be carried over before detection[2].

This work is supported by National Nature Science Foundation under

Grant 51178373 and Industry Application Development Research
Program of Xian city under Grant YF07045 and Application Technology
Research Program of Beilin District under Grant GX1206

c
978-1-4799-3708-0/14/$31.00 2014
IEEE

SLAG DETECTION METHOD

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2.1 Electromagnetic Slag Detection Method

The electromagnetic slag detection method is the most
widely used detection method which was presented by
AMEPA in 1980s. This system uses one concentrically
arranged coils located around the ladle shroud as sensor. As
shown in Figure 2, an alternating current is fed into the
sensor, thereby inducing eddy currents in the molten steel
as it flows out through the ladle shroud. The slag has a
significantly lower electrical conductivity than molten
steel, the eddy currents induced in the slag are smaller than
those induced in the steel. The conductivity changes and the
electromagnetic field increases slightly when there is any
slag carry over in the molten steel. Because of the
concentric design of the sensors, a maximum
electromagnetic field is generated in the molten steel and a
strong signal is achieved. The measuring results are
independent of the pouring velocity of the melt. It has been
reported by several steel plants that the electromagnetic
slag detection method reduce the downgraded slabs
attributable to ladle-to-tundish slag carry over significantly.
H~

I~

Fig 3. Thermal infrared imaging slag detection schematic[4]

This method is in real time which of both materials is the

current main constituent of the tapping, respectively the
deslagging stream coming out of the ladle. Full access of
the tapping data is available to the operator for quality
control purposes.

2.3 Supersonic wave slag detection method

Supersonic wave slag detection is based on the difference
of wave reflection between steel and slag[5]. The structure
of dip-in style supersonic wave detection system is shown
in Figure 4.

H~

I~

Fig 4. Supersonic wave slag detection system schematic[4][6]

1) Electromagnetic field Only steel 2) Electromagnetic field With slag

Fig 2. Electromagnetic slag detection principle[3]

In the steel plant environment, all measurement equipment

and sensors are expected to meet the highest demands in
terms of reliability and robustness. The coil sensors must
work in temperatures of up to 800 C and will be easily
damaged, this cause the high maintenance charge. And the
system installation process is complicated.

2.2 Infrared thermal imaging slag detection method

The principle of infrared thermal imaging slag detection
method stand in that steel and slag have different features
with regard to radiation physics in the infrared spectral
range. The schematic arrangement of the infrared thermal
imaging technique is shown in Figure 3, thermal imaging
techniques has been used to reduce the slag from converter
to ladle during the end of tapping. But the total amount of
slag inside the molten steel cannot be removed and a large
amount of slag is carried into the caster side. In the ladle
slag detection with thermal imaging technique, a CCD
camera is aimed to take the image of the area of the junction
of shroud and tundish layer. The camera is connected to the
computer through a frame grabber card. As the density of
the slag density is about half of the steel, the slag floats
immediately as it enters the tundish through ladle shroud.
The floating slag breaks the surface of the molten steel and
slag layer and a significant splashing of light takes place.
The imaging system detects the sudden splashing of light
which is possibly to determine whether the slag carry over
has happened without any contact of the molten steel.

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As shown in Figure 4, the dip-in style supersonic detection

system consists of a supersonic impulse generator, a launch
probe which radios the supersonic impulse, a reception
probe which receives the supersonic impulses, an amplifier
and a computer. The launch probe and the reception probe
are dipped in the tundish, the reception probe can catch two
peak signals reflected from the two side walls when slag
doesnt carry over, supersonic wave will create contacting
reflection on slag when slag enters the tundish, and the
system will obtain three or more peak signals as shown in
Figure 4.

Vibration Analysis Slag Detection Method

Experienced operators have found when molten steel flows

through the ladle shroud into the tundish, it will create a
certain extent of vibration, and the vibration is more violent
as the steel stream increases. Combined expertise in
metallurgy, casting operations, vibration analysis and
software engineering to develop a reliable real-time slag
detection system.
The vibration analysis slag detection method is based on
vibration monitoring of the ladle shroud, using an
accelerometer attached to the shroud manipulator arm. As
is shown in Figure 5, the vibration slag detection system
consists of an accelerometer, a signal converter, a controller
and a computer. The ladle shroud temperature is highly in
casting process. An advanced digital tri-axial accelerometer
is attached to the ladle shroud manipulator arm which can
collect the vibration signal of ladle shroud as the arm is
fixed with the ladle shroud. Signal converter amplifies and
converts the vibration signals to digital signals. The
vibration signals cause of molten steel and slag flow in the

2014 26th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC)

shroud are detected by the accelerometer and processed by

the computer. If slag carry over occurs, the controller will
deal with the ladle removal.

Fig 5. Vibration slag detection system schematic[2][7]

The accelerometer is positioned on the manipulator arm and

can be used on any of the ladle, the vibration analysis slag
detection method appears attractive and preferable to other
techniques that require sensors installation on each ladle or
in severe environment. Because all components are
installed far away from sensitive casting regions, thus
guaranteeing long lifespan and durability of the system.
The density of slag is about half of melted steel, the
vibration caused by slag must be different from pure molten
steel. From the vibration signal differences the slag carry
over can be detected. Set up a slag alarm threshold points
which can activate an alarm and shut the steel flow off
when the signal exceeds the threshold.
The molten steel in the ladle shroud was assumed to be an
incompressible and isothermal Newtonian steady flow. The
main governing equations for fluid flow consist of the
continuity equation, the NavierStokes equations, the
turbulence energy, and its dissipation rate equations.
Slag, pure steel, and mixture have different specific
vibration pattern , slag carry over can be detected by
pattern recognition.

Experiments and Analysis

Using the system shown in Figure 5. We can get the data of

steel fluid, mixture of steel and slag and slag carry over in
time domain, as shown in Figure 6.

4.1 Power Spectral Density

Energy spectral density describes how the energy of a
signal or a time series is distributed with frequency. Power
spectral density (PSD), which describes how the power of a
signal or time series is distributed over the different
frequencies. Here, power can be the actual physical power,
or more often, for convenience with abstract signals, can be
defined as the squared value of the signal. The integral of
the PSD over a given frequency band computes the average
power in the signal over that frequency band. In contrast to
the mean-squared spectrum, the peaks in this spectra do not
reflect the power at a given frequency.
Welch's method is used for estimating the power of a signal
at different frequencies: that is, it is an approach to spectral
density estimation. The method is based on the concept of
using periodograms spectrum estimates, which are the
result of converting a signal from the time domain to the
frequency domain. Welch's method splits the data into
overlapping segments, computes modified periodograms of
the overlapping segments, and averages the resulting
periodograms to produce the power spectral density
estimate. Estimates the power spectral density of the
vibration signals using Welch's method, we can get the
results in Figure 7.

1) PSD of Figure 6.1

2) PSD of Figure 6.3

Fig 7. PSD of shroud manipulator arm by Welch's method

From Figure 7 we can get the conclusion that the vibration

frequency of the shroud manipulator arm varied at different
phase of continuous casting. The vibration signal frequency
of pure steel concentrate in the scale of [60,120] Hz. The
vibration signals frequency concentrate in the scale of [10,
60] Hz when slag carry over happened. This result
according with the Figure 20.2 in reference [2].

2.4 Discrete Wavelet Decomposition

1) Steel fluid

2) Mixture of steel and slag 3) Slag carry over

Fig 6. Vibration signals of shroud manipulator arm

From Figure 6 we can an overview that the vibration of

ladle shroud decreased as the slag flow through ladle
shroud increased, the vibration waveform changed
distinctly at the time of slag carry over happened.

The Fourier transform is a powerful tool in analyze the

frequency components of the signal. However, if we take
the Fourier transform over the whole time axis, we cannot
get the information of a particular frequency rises at which
instant. Short-time Fourier transform (STFT) uses a sliding
window to find spectrogram, which gives the information
of both time and frequency. But still another problem
exists: The length of window limits the resolution in
frequency. Wavelet transform seems to be a solution to the
problem above. Wavelet transforms are based on small
wavelets with limited duration. The translated wavelets
locate where we concern. Whereas the scaled-version
wavelets allow us to analyze the signal in different scale.
Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is any wavelet
transform for which the wavelets are discretely sampled.
As with other wavelet transforms, a key advantage it has
over Fourier transforms is temporal resolution: it captures
both frequency and location information (location in time).

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In this paper, the layer is set as 8, the frequency scale is

shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Wavelet decomposition frequency scale
Layer No.

Frequency scale(Hz)

d1

500-1000

d2

250-500

d3

125-250

d4

62.5-125

d5

31.25-62.5

d6

15.63-31.25

d7

7.81-15.63

d8

3.91-7.81

The eight scale layers wavelet decomposition results of

Figure 6 is shown in Figure 8.

Conclusion

An indirect slag detection method based on vibration is

presented in this paper, we can get the slag carry over
information by detect the vibration of Ladle shroud
manipulator arm. The method can decrease the
environment sensitivity and requirements to device.
From the experiments data we can get the results:
1) Using the PSD method, the frequency of pure steel fluid
concentrate in the scale of [60,120] Hz and the frequency of
slag carry over concentrate in the scale of [10,60]Hz.
2) Using the Discrete Wavelet Decomposition method, the
frequency scale of pure steel fluid centralized in the scale of
[31.25-62.5] Hz, [ 62.5-125] Hz, [ 125-250] Hz and the
frequency of slag carry over centralized in the scale of
[7.81-15.63]Hz, [15.63-31.25]Hz, [31.25-62.5]Hz.
3) The results of PSD method accordance with the results of
Discrete Wavelet Decomposition method. The vibration
style slag detection method is validity.

REFERENCES

1) Wavelet decomposition of Steel fluid

[1] B.Chakraborty et.al., Development of caster slag detection

system through imaging technique, International Journal of
Instrumentation Technology, Vol.1, No.1, 84-91, 2011.
[2] M. R. Ozgu, Instrumentation. The Making, Shaping and
Treating of Steel, 11th ed., Casting Volume, The AISE Steel
Foundation, Pitsburg, 2003.
[3] Frenk van den Berg et.al., Real-time Meniscus Level and
Slag Thickness Measurement by RADAR, Proceedings of
the International Conference on Non Destructive Evaluation
for Steel and Allied Industries, 12-20, 2011,
[4] D.Tan et. al., Development of vibration style ladle slag
detection methods and the key technologies. Science
China-Technological Sciences, Vol.53, No.9, 23782387,
2010.
[5] Walker D I, Dawson S, Mountford N D G, et al.
Development of ultrasonic sensors for the early detection of
slag carry over. Trans Iron Steel Soc AIME, 1991, 12:
223230
[6] Land instruments Int. SDS: The definitive infrared thermal
imaging
system
for
steel
slag
monitoring.
http://www.landinst.com/infrared/downloads/pdf/SDS_slag
_detection_system.pdf, 2005.
[7] Davidkhanian, A., Kemeny, F., Langari, A. and Walker, D.
Slag detector for molten steel transfer operation, US Patent
No. 6,737,014 B2, 18 May 2004.

2) Wavelet decomposition of Slag carry over

Fig 8. Wavelet Decomposition of Shroud manipulator arm

From Figure 8 we can get the conclusion that in the phase of

steel fluid, the vibration frequency of shroud manipulator
arm centralized in the scale of d3, d4, d5, in the phase of slag
carry over the vibration frequency of shroud manipulator
arm centralized in the scale of d5, d6, d7. The conclusion is
accordance with what we have got from Figure 7.
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2014 26th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC)