Prediction of Residual Mg Contents in Ladle and Product after Graphite Spheroidizing Treatment by Using Artificial Neural Network

抄録

Mg Cored wire method is a type of spheroidization treatment method. It has been introduced by many foundries from the viewpoints of improving the environment safety of factory workers, automation and productivity. However, the prediction of residual Mg content depends on experience because various factors complexly affect each other and the effects of each factor on Mg yield rate have not been clarified theoretically.

In this research, we regard the relationship between these factors of spheroidization and residual Mg content as a nonlinear optimization problem. Therefore, we attempted to predict residual Mg content in the ladle and the product after pouring, which was spheroidized by Mg Cored wire method using the layered neural network (ANN). In ANN learning, the method of using the actual measured data as it is, the method of utilizing engineering knowledge, and the method of correcting data noise were examined. In addition, we constructed ANN for the relationship between the operation conditions of the spheroidizing treatment and residual Mg content in the ladle, and the relationship between the residual Mg content of the ladle and pouring conditions and residual Mg content of the product.

As a result, the predicted residual Mg content in the ladle using ANN could be estimated with the correction coefficient R = 0.91. According to the constructed ANN, the higher the residual Mg content in the ladle, the lower is the yield rate of the Mg in the product. The yield rate of Mg could be improved to 54% by reducing the residual Mg content in the ladle to 0.042%. It was also clarified that the residual Mg content is the same in the ladle and the product. When this result was verified in an actual plant using 25% Mg wire, the yield rate of Mg improved by 53% at a monthly average and to about 65% at the highest value.

 

This Paper was Originally Published in Japanese in J. JFS 92 (2020) 408–415. The captions of Fig. 3–10, 12, 13 are slightly changed. Reference 11, 12) were removed due to no citation.