EMPOWERMENT WITH KNOWLEDGE - TOWARD THE INTELLIGENT MOLD FOR THE CONTINUOUS-CASTING OF STEEL BILLETS

A never-ending challenge to the competitiveness of the steel industry is the application of knowledge on the shop floor where, finally, prod uctivity and quality are realized. The impediments to the effective im plementation of knowledge are largely people related and range from th e level of education of the work force to entrenched attitudes of mana gement. The development of the continuous-casting process for the prod uction of steel billets, upon which this lecture focuses, is but one e xample. Looking back over 20 years, it is clear that the billet indust ry, in its infancy, was in a state of confusion, operating without cas ting standards coupled to quality, such that individual companies had developed very different practices. Research over 2 decades has establ ished the knowledge base for the continuous casting of quality billets and set much needed standards for the design, operation, and maintena nce of casting machines. The challenge now is in knowledge transfer an d implementation with the aid of expert systems. Thus, the expert syst em for continuous casting and the concept of the intelligent billet ca sting mold have evolved to transcend other forms of knowledge transfer like publications and short courses. The intelligent mold effectively transfers knowledge on line to the shop floor through the combination of sensors (thermocouples and load cells), signal recognition based o n years of research, mathematical models of heat flow in the solidifyi ng shell and mold, understanding of the mechanisms of quality problems , and the formulation of a response to a given set of casting conditio ns, all controlled by an expert system. In this lecture, the drive to develop, transfer, and implement knowledge on the continuous casting o f quality billets is explored. Lessons for the future are drawn from s uccesses, failures, and frustrations in the past.