System and method for using fast response heaters to pre-heat metal before entering a metal treatment furnace, which may improve control over metal processing, especially in response to changes in material, mass flow rate, line speed, and/or desired treatment process. Fast response heaters may be used with control systems to adjust the output of the fast response heater based on operator inputs, direct or indirect sensing of process parameters, and/or the use of thermal models to quickly adjust fast response heater output while a metal treatment furnace remains at a constant temperature or slowly transitions into a new operating state. The resulting gains in process control result in higher quality products, reduced scrap, and increases in line speed and output.

In a substrate pre-baking device, a baking box housing includes a baking chamber in an interior space of the baking box housing, wherein an opening corresponding to a side door is arranged on a lateral side of the baking box housing. The side door is arranged at the opening of the baking box housing. A heating structure is arranged in the baking chamber. A hot air curtain device is arranged at the side door of the baking box housing. When the side door is opened, the hot air curtain device is configured to form a hot air curtain for isolating the baking chamber from outside environment at the opening of the side door.

A method of operating a cooking appliance in coordinated communication with, for example, a remote server and a user device, is provided. The method may include receiving a recipe selection signal of a predetermined recipe at the remote server, and transmitting a recipe information signal to the cooking appliance based on the predetermined recipe. The method may further include receiving an appliance confirmation signal from the cooking appliance in response to a discrete recipe action of the predetermined recipe being performed at the cooking appliance subsequent to receiving the recipe selection signal. The method may still further include transmitting a determined status signal to the user device based on the received appliance confirmation signal.

A control system for a vacuum arc remelting (VAR) process for a metal includes a direct current (DC) power source, a ram drive, voltage drip short sensor, and a controller, which includes a processor. The drip short sensor may be configured to measure a drip short frequency of the electric arc over a period of time. The controller is configured to determine a real time arc gap length between the electrode tip and the melt pool based on a correlation between the drip short frequency and arc gap length. The controller is further configured to control power input to the electrode by the DC power supply by determining an input power level to input to the electrode based on the real time arc gap length, the input power level configured to generate a desired arc gap length, by the DC power supply, at the input power level.

The invention relates to a method for operating a furnace (10), in particular an anode furnace, the furnace being formed by a plurality of heating channels (12) and furnace chambers, the furnace chambers serving to receive carbonaceous bodies, in particular anodes, and the heating channels serving to control the temperature of the furnace chambers, the furnace comprising at least one furnace unit (11), the furnace unit comprising a heating zone (18), a fire zone (19) and a cooling zone (20), which for their part are formed by at least one section (37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42) comprising furnace chambers, a suction ramp (15) of the furnace unit being disposed in a section of the heating zone, and a burner ramp (16) of the furnace unit being disposed in a section of the fire zone, process air in the heating channels of the fire zone being heated by means of the burner ramp, and exhaust gas being suctioned from the heating channels of the heating zone by means of the suction ramp, an operation of the ramps being controlled by means of a control device of the furnace unit, a temperature in the heating channel being measured in the fire zone, an output of the burner ramp being regulated according to the temperature measured in the heating channel by means of a regulator of the control device, wherein, by means of the control device, at least two characteristic numbers are determined and the characteristic numbers are compared, a status of the heating channel relative to an amount of fuel in the heating channel being determined on the basis of the comparison by means of the control device, a characteristic number including the temperature in the heating channel and/or a characteristic number including the output of the burner ramp and/or a characteristic number including a controlled variable of the regulator being determined as characteristic numbers. Furthermore, the invention relates to a control device for operating a furnace and to a furnace.

An induction heating device for a metal strip, including: an induction coil provided on one side or on both sides of a front face side or a reverse face side of a metal strip, and that induces an induction current in the strip when a primary current is passed through the coil, the induction current configuring a closed loop as viewed from a direction perpendicular to a metal strip face; plural magnetic cores disposed at a specific position, this being a position at a back face side of the coil and separated from the strip by a specific distance, to concentrate magnetic flux generated by the coil in the strip; and a moving mechanism coupled to the magnetic cores, and that moves the cores to increase or decrease a disposed number of the cores at the specific position disposed side-by-side along a metal strip width direction.

A system measures parameters of the electricity drawn by an arc furnace and, based on an analysis of the parameters, provides indicators of whether arc coverage has been optimized. Factors related to optimization of arc coverage include electrode position, charge level, slag level and slag behaviour. More specifically, such indicators of whether arc coverage has been optimized may be used when determining a position for the electrode such that, to an extent possible, a stable arc cavity is maintained and an open arc condition is avoided. Conveniently, by avoiding open arc conditions, the internal linings of the furnace walls and roof may be protected from excessive wear and tear.

Disclosed is a method and device for determining the loss on ignition of at least part of an iron and steel product during passage through a furnace upstream of a descaler. The device includes electromagnetic sensors, with at least one arranged to scan the product's lower surface near the furnace outlet, the sensor oriented so the scanning plane of the electromagnetic radiation from the sensor is perpendicular to a direction of movement; a set of at least two electromagnetic sensors upstream of the descaler, oriented so their scanning planes are substantially on a single plane perpendicular to the direction of movement of the at least part of the product; and at least two electromagnetic sensors downstream of the descaler, oriented so their scanning planes are substantially on a single plane perpendicular to the product's movement direction. The sensors determine the height of the product upstream and downstream of the descaler.

Methods and apparatus to provide closed loop control in a solar cell production system are disclosed. An example solar cell production system includes: a firing furnace comprising a plurality of zones and a belt configured to transport photovoltaic cells through a sequence of the plurality of zones, the zones comprising firing elements configured to fire a metallization layer of photovoltaic cells by heating ambient air in the zones to respective temperatures; a cooling chamber configured to cool the photovoltaic cells; a photovoltaic cell tester configured to measure a property of the photovoltaic cells after cooling of the photovoltaic cells in the cooling chamber; and control circuitry configured to control firing elements based on the property of the photovoltaic cells measured by the photovoltaic cell tester.

Controlling circumferential variability in a blast furnace may include generating a predictive model that sets up a relationship between a standard deviation of a selected state variable, state variables and one or more control variables in blast furnace operation for predicting the standard deviation. A number of circumferential sections of the blast furnace is defined, and the predictive model associated with the selected state variable for each of the circumferential sections is trained based on process data of the blast furnace. A plurality trained predictive models is generated associated with different circumferential sections and different selected state variables. One or more future control variable set points that minimize a sum of the plurality of predictive models, is determined. One or more future control variable set points is transmitted to a control system to control the blast furnace operation.