Summary of progress month 18, August 2005

Methodology

The first 6-month period of the project constituted a start and preparation phase with focus on developing a conceptual understanding of the industrial cases, steel manufacturing at SSAB Oxelösund AB and the Stockholm Vatten AB wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), and problems to approach as well as identifying and collecting the data necessary to carry out the technical work. During the first half year, the HIPCON project finished the work with describing and analysing the cases with respect to plant objectives, function and strategies for control options. The first historical data was also retrieved, which enabled starting "hands on" work through modelling real process data. During the second half of 2004, environmental and economical modelling of the case studies started with development of KPIs. The research on social performance indicators has resulted in a report, which forms the basis of the remaining work in this field. Process modelling work started when data became available and is progressing in several parallel tracks, aiming at process diagnostics, soft sensing and process simulation. Both empirical (multivariate statistics, artificial neural networks etc.), semi-physical (grey-box) and physical approaches are being used. The work on process control methods and strategies has proceeded along different tracks, incorporating economical and environmental considerations. Several novel control strategies for both case studies are being evaluated using simulation models and historical plant data. One project objective is the development of prototype computer code integrating mathematical models from different disciplines in a holistic process management system. User software requirements and internal software specifications were developed during the first 6 months. System design and prototyping was started during the second half of 2004. The software development has progressed successfully during the first 18 months and demonstration prototype have been developed and successfully used.

Steel plant

In the steel plant case study, the HIPCON project has already produced useful results for the steel making process, e.g. the so-called LD converter process. A key objective better understand the slopping phenomenon since it has both serious economic and environmental performance impact. The initial models can be used to estimate potential risk for slopping. Process models describing the desulphurisation process have been developed. The models show good potential in saving carbide reagent (used for desulphurisation) which will lower the production costs substantially. Economical and environmental models are now being merged with the developed process models to fully more accurately evaluate proper process conditions. Work with developing a simulation model for the process chain from "coke to slab" has started.

The HIPCON researcher Sergey Shybayev from LSE during a rainy visit to SSAB site.

Wastewater treatment plant

The activities for the wastewater treatment plant case study have been intense during the first 18 months. To facilitate process modelling, several measurement campaigns have been carried out. The purposes of the campaigns have been to collect high quality data to develop empirical models and to calibrate the ASM1 model used for simulation of the activated sludge process. The initial work started on using process models to predict phosphorus content in the wastewater for better control of the precipitation process. This work has been successful and is now close to an on-line application. The estimated savings of precipitation chemicals for the plant is more than 20 %. The calibration of the ASM1 model turned out to be more difficult than expected and this work is therefore delayed. However the model is expected to be ready during the autumn 2005. The model will be used for different control and optimisation purposes for the activated sludge part of the process. Economic and environmental key performance indicators have been developed for measuring plant performance. Industrial interaction During the year, a lot of work has been made to start up the Industrial Reference Group (IRG) by recruiting members and provide them with sufficient information about the project and the cases. This work has been successful; the group currently consists of representatives from 12 large companies from various industrial fields with a geographical spread over Europe. The consortium will use the IRG as an advisory agent that will feed back on the use of HIPCON results from an industrial point of view. A physical meeting with the IRG members was held in London in April. They received information about the project and the preliminary results. The HIPCON consortium also received useful feed back information. Initial meetings with two of the companies have also been held in order to discuss the possibilities to implement the HIPCON concept in their processes.

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