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DOI: 10.1002/adem.200700008

Automation of a Vacuum Steel Centre at the Department

of Ferrous Metallurgy
By U. Epple, S. Geimer, S. Schmitz and D. Senk*
Vacuum metallurgy has a leading role during secondary
steel making as meeting the requirements within this process
becomes more and more important. During the last decades
various processes for optimisation of steel quality were
educed. For the degassing of steel melts several vacuum degassing systems were developed featuring high efficiency
and relatively simple design. Two different processes have
been established, the circulation process (e.g. RH-Process)
and the vacuum tank degassing (e.g. VD or VOD-Process).
During vacuum treatment undesirable gaseous elements
solved in the liquid steel melt can be removed. Furthermore a
decarburisation during this process can be achieved.
At the Department of Ferrous Metallurgy a vacuum steel
centre was established which consists of four different vacuum induction furnaces. Two small furnaces are mainly used
for lab scale tests, research projects and the education of students with respect to vacuum technology. The 85 kg vacuum
induction furnace (VI-3) is used for industrial melt requests.
The advantage of this furnace is its bottom tapping which enables a continuous casting simulation. Furthermore, direct inline rolling below the furnace is possible. The new vacuum
induction furnace (VI-4) was installed in 2005, see Figure 1.
With a maximum melting capacity of 100 kg steel a minimum
pressure of 5.103 mbar is achievable. Via a sliding gate a second chamber is installed so that the melt can be tapped via a
runner into the second chamber where further treatment is
possible, Figure 2. Movable lances are installed on the top so
that charging, sampling, measurement of temperature or oxygen is possible.[1]
Requirements
Without mentioning the trivial requirements concerning
availability, safety and security, the vacuum inductive melting furnace VI-4 is located in the area of tension between re-

Fig. 1. Vacuum induction furnace No. 4 (VI-4), melting capacity up to 100 kg.

search & development on the one hand and the educational

use on the other. R&D, especially in terms of product and
process recipe development, demands reproducible and flexible
structures inside the process control system (abbr. PCS). The
educational use of the VI-4 then again implies a multitude of
operators with different knowledge about process, product
and facility. For this reason the operation of the PCS needs to
be simple and intuitive. The Chair of Process Control Engineering has developed and implemented such a kind of infrastructure for the use inside a common process control system
named ACPLT/PF.
Process Control Infrastructure: ACPLT/PF
ACPLT is the registered trademark of the Chair of Process
Control Engineering (AaChener ProzessLeitTechnik). PF is
the abbreviated form of the German expression for process
control (ProzessFhrung). ACPLT/PF is the product name

[*] Prof. D. Senk, Dr. S. Geimer

Department of Ferrous Metallurgy
RWTH Aachen University
D-52056 Aachen
E-mail: dieter.senk@iehk.rwth-aachen.de
Prof. U. Epple, S. Schmitz
Chair of Process Control Engineering
RWTH Aachen University
D-52064 Aachen

ADVANCED ENGINEERING MATERIALS 2007, 9, No. 4

Fig. 2. Two-chamber-system of VI-4 including slide gate.

2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

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Senk et al./Automation of a Vacuum Steel Centre at the Department of Ferrous Metallurgy

ACPLT/PF
(Reproducible and flexible structures,
Simple and intuitive operation)

Start

Fig. 4. Typical control logic.

component
based

command
oriented

hierarchical
architecture

common process
control languages

ACPLT Basic Infrastructure

Function Block System: ACPLT/FB resp. LTSoft iFBSpro
Object Managemant System: ACPLT/OV
Communication System: ACPLT/KS

Fig. 3. Architecture of the process control infrastructure ACPLT/PF

to represent the whole functionality of its corresponding

equipment. This measure allows the insertion of process control units on a higher control level so called group control
units controlling a couple of the units from a level below
without knowing how to interact with the physical equipment, only using the command oriented interface and the
state changes due to the generic state controllers.

for a comprehensive process control infrastructure concept

and implementation developed at the Chair of Process ConAutomation of the Vacuum Steel Centre
trol Engineering.[25] This Open Source product is based on
[6]
the function block system iFBSpro from LTSoft GmbH. Its
The vacuum inductive melting furnace was originally
main ideas will be introduced briefly.
equipped with a rudimentarily engineered process control
ACPLT/PF consists of four supporting pillars (Fig. 3).
system. Concerning the former mentioned requirements and
First of all, it is of capital importance to mention that all proevaluating the future profits of a continuously developed
cess control units are component based. On the one hand, this
Open Source solution based on open standards the Departmeasure eases the development of new process control units,
ment of Ferrous Metallurgy decided to cooperate with the
e.g. for an inductive melting coil. On the other hand, it unifies
Chair of Process Control Engineering in terms of automation
their internal structure, so the control logic of each process
the VI-4.
control unit differs but not the interaction or their general opThe automation was executed using the former described
eration.
implementation of ACPLT/PF. Therefore, the PCS was exFurthermore, ACPLT/PF is equipped with a command-orchanged with a common Personal Computer, realising the
ientated interface. This interface in combination with generic
PROFIBUS wired communication with the field devices and
state controllers unifies the interaction between operator and
containing the process control logic. At first the whole operatprocess control units as well as among the units. The generic
ing equipment was mapped to single control units. Due to
state controllers ensure a unified response and control logic of each process control unit. In addition
the flexibility of the process control system is increased due to a non-restricted number of possible
commands in comparison with conventional solutions.
The specific logic of each process control unit is
formulated with sequential function charts defined in
IEC 1131,[7] enriched by hand-picked parts from the
UML state charts[8] and embedded into the infrastructure of the process control system (Fig. 4). In
cases of the later mentioned group control units a
combination of sequential function charts and function blocks can be used to achieve the demanded
flexibility. Sequential function charts and function
blocks are common and intuitive languages used in
the area of process control engineering.
Last to mention, the hierarchical control unit architecture. One process control unit is dedicated to each
operating equipment. The unit a function block
interacting with the real physical equipment has
Fig. 5. Operators view.

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2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

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Senk et al./Automation of a Vacuum Steel Centre at the Department of Ferrous Metallurgy

lurgy. A close cooperation between process control, automation technology and vacuum metallurgy was realised.

[1]

[2]

[3]

Benefits
Increased requirements for steel quality with respect to
solved gases in liquid steel melt leads to vacuum metallurgy.
To prevent the reaction of air with the steel and to remove
disturbing gases like nitrogen, hydrogen or oxygen, vacuum
treatment is a suitable procedure. For many decades the Department of Ferrous Metallurgy has been doing research in
the field of vacuum technology.
On the one hand, the new vacuum induction furnace with
a state of the art process automation system complies with
the customers requirements. On the other hand, new process
techniques can be tested. Continuous implementation of
further developments will assure that the installed equipment
will also meet the future needs of modern secondary metal-

[4]

[5]

[6]
[7]

[8]

S. Geimer, D. Senk, Metallurgische Untersuchungen im

Vakuum-Stahl-Zentrum, Berichtsband zum 21. Aachener
Stahlkolloquium 14. 15.09.2006, ISBN 3-86130-906-8,
2006.
M. Heeg, U. Epple, Standardisierung von Funktionsbausteinen fr die gehobene Prozessfhrung, Int. Sci. Colloq.
Ilmenau Technical University, 2000.
U. Enste, Generische Entwurfsmuster in der Funktionsbausteintechnik und deren Anwendung in der operativen Prozessfhrung, Fortschritt-Berichte VDI, Reihe 8, Nr. 884,
ISBN 3-18-388408-9, 2001.
St. Schmitz, Flexibler Prozessfhrungsrahmen fr einen
Vakuumschmelz-ofen, diploma thesis, RWTH Aachen University, 2004.
St. Schmitz, A. Mnnemann, U. Epple, Component Mod.
for Syst. Design of Proc. Control Functions, GMA Kongress 2005, ISBN 3-18-091883-7, 2005.
LTSoft GmbH: LTSoft Homepage, http://www.ltsoft.de,
Kerpen, Germany.
Deutsches Institut fr Normung / International Electrotechnical Commission: DIN IEC 61131: Programmable
controllers, Beuth Verlag GmbH, Berlin, 2003.
Object Management Group, Unified Modelling Language
Homepage, http://www.uml.org.

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2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

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the fact that single control units represent the whole functionality of their corresponding equipment, the VI-4 was now already capable of its full production repertoire. In order to increase the grade of automation, group control units were
engineered, e.g. a control unit for the three vacuum pumps of
the VI-4. This hierarchical grouping carried on up to control
units for the technical units of the furnace and ended in an
unit for the whole furnace itself only interacting with the control units of the furnaces technical units. On this control level
the internal logic, still described as a combination of sequential function charts and function blocks, was a production recipe for each demanded product.