Cancellation of Bulging Effect on Mold Level in Continuous Casting:

Experimental Validation
Karim Jabri* Emmanuel Godoy** Didier Dumur** Alain Mouchette* Bertrand Ble*
*Measurement and Control Department, ArcelorMittal Research, Maizires, France
(e-mail: {karim.jabri, alain.mouchette, bertrand.bele}@arcelormittal.com)
**Automatic Control Department, Suplec, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
(e-mail: {emmanuel.godoy, didier.dumur}@supelec.fr)
Abstract: During the continuous casting of the steel, several disturbances occur and affect all the parts of
the caster, including the mold where the molten steel has to be stable for good quality of the final
product. Especially at higher casting velocities, the bulging generates important level fluctuations which
cannot be rejected by classical controllers. To address these problems, this paper proposes an architecture
combining disturbances estimation and compensation techniques. It operates as an additional layer and
does not need any change of the main controller currently implemented. The whole structure has been
tested successfully by means of water model experiments.
Keywords: Parameter identification and process modeling, disturbances estimation, Luenberger observer,
continuous casting, bulging, water model.
1. INTRODUCTION
The continuous casting is the widely used technique in the
steel industry to product solid slabs used by manufacturing
processes. It has made a significant improvement of the
plants productivity. Therefore, the performances of the
process control are a primary requirement for steelmakers.
Several studies about slabs quality indicate that the level
fluctuations over the meniscus surface are highly responsible
for the defects of the final product. As a consequence, the
mold level is always controlled by means of a stopper rod or
a sliding gate which regulates the flow through the nozzle.
Different control strategies have been proposed (Richalet et
al. [2004], Matoba et al. [1990], Kitada et al. [1998], and
Dussud et al. [1998]). Some of them are currently
implemented but suffer from a weak rejection of disturbances
which rise in severity at certain casting conditions. In our
view, this problem must be addressed by a complementary
component to the main controller.

2. WATER MODEL OF CONTINUOUS CASTING

2.1 Machine description
The schematic diagram of the water model is shown in Fig. 1.
It includes a tundish, a nozzle, a mold and a pump. Thereby,
the water flows from the tundish into the mold through the
nozzle. The stopper position permits to vary the flow into the
mold. The flow out of the mold is set by means of a pump
which supplies the water to the tundish.
The mold width can be adjusted to a desired dimension
through a mobile wall which moves horizontally.
Furthermore, the tundish (and the nozzle) slides horizontally
too.

For the above reasons, this paper proposes a compensation

technique based on disturbances estimation and feed-forward
actions. The water model, acting as an experimental means
reproducing the continuous casting process, is used to
validate this approach able both to cancel certain periodic
level variations and to inform operators about disturbances
occurring in the lower part of the caster from whom only
relatively little information is available.
The paper is structured as follows. Next section describes the
water model of the continuous casting process. Section 3
presents the identification procedure of the plant model
classically used for level controller design. In section 4, we
focus upon the disturbances observer synthesis and the
bulging compensation strategy. Section 5 summarizes the
obtained results based on water model experiments.

Tundish

Nozzle

Mold

Fig. 1. Water model.

IFACMMM 2009. Via del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.

To avoid water overflows, the water model is equipped with a

pipe at the top of the mold in order to drain off the excess of
water. The ultrasonic level sensor can be placed everywhere
above the water free surface. The submerged entry nozzle
(SEN) can be adapted or replaced if necessary as well.
Table 1: Tundish and mold dimensions in water model.
Dimension
Width (mm)
Thickness (mm)
Height (mm)

Tundish
1000
360
990

Mold
1000
100
2000

The available measurements are the stopper position, the

mold level, the air flow rate injected to model argon gas
injection performed at real plants, the air pressure and the
flow out the mold. The available control inputs are the
setpoints of the pump speed, the stopper position and the air
flow rate.

Undesired disturbances occur during casting operations in

real plants. Some of them generate fluctuations over the
meniscus surface (Jabri et al. [2008a]). Only the two most
important ones are considered below.
In the steel industry, the clogging is one of the most
disruptive phenomena for the continuous casting machine
because it changes the nozzle flow patterns and jet
characteristics exiting the ports (Thomas and Bai [2001]). It
expands progressively and is followed by a sudden
unclogging which raises substantially the mold level. It is not
easy to simulate this clogging/unclogging cycle in the water
model. Nevertheless, its effect on the mold level or the jet
coming from the nozzle may be simulated by acting on the
nozzle ports.
The second disturbance considered in this paper is the
bulging (Fig. 2). Due to increasing pressure inside the strand,
the solidified shell profile varies with time and is described
by a sine function with a frequency in the range of 0.030.1Hz related to the casting speed and the roll pitch. When its
convex part is located between the two rolls, mold level falls.
When its concave part is located between the two rolls, mold
level rises (Yoon et al. [2002], and Lee and Yim [2000]). In
the water model, this disturbance can be simulated by varying
the flow out the mold as a sine wave.
Dynamic & unsteady

Roll
Strand
Roll pitch

Fig. 3 depicts the currently used oriented control model

where the disturbances are not modeled. A first loop controls
the stopper position P by means of the position setpoint P *
delivered by the main controller. The inner closed loop,
considered here as a first order transfer function, and the
second outer one which regulates the mold level N are out
of the scope of this paper.
The flow out of the mold Qout is imposed by the casting
speed and the mold section. The flow into the mold Qin is
determined by the stopper position. The level N is
calculated as the integration of the difference between Qout
and Qin divided by the cross section of the mold.
The parameters appearing in the plant model are: a the
actuator time constant, Gn the stopper gain, n the nozzle
delay and S the mold section. s is the Laplace variable.

2.2 Disturbances

No bulging

2.3 Plant model

Ferrostatic pressure

Fig. 2. Types of bulging.

IFACMMM 2009. Via del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.

P*

1
1 a s

Gn e

- n s

Qout
Qin
-+

1
Ss

Fig. 3. Plant model.

During the experiments, a discrete control loop with PI
controller was used in order to regulate the level with the
following parameters:

K 0.3 Ti 12 s Ts 0.01 s

Ts is the sampling time and TFPI K (1 1 Ti s) .

3. PLANT MODEL IDENTIFICATION
This section presents different steps needed to identify the
previous plant model, in particular the two main parameters:
the gain Gn and the delay n crucial for the compensation
structure. The mold section S is known and set at the
beginning by means of a mobile side which fixes the mold
width. Nevertheless, only S is taken into account in the
controller design. First, we follow the classical procedure
starting by collecting data delivered by the available sensors
according to an experimental protocol (Landau and
Besanon-Voda [2001]). Then, the recorded measurements
will be used to determine the unknown values. The time
constant a is relatively small and will be neglected in the
sequel.
3.1 Data acquisition protocol
In this work, the plant model identification has been achieved
operating in closed loop because it is the only feasible

solution which can be actually set up in real plants. An

external signal is added to the stopper position setpoint as
shown in Fig. 4. Here, this exciting signal is a pseudo random
binary sequence tuned according to the operating point and
the time response of the level regulation loop. The chosen
tuning is given in the last section.

N*

+-

PI

++

Gn e

- n s

Qout
Qin
-+

1
Ss

exciting signal

fluctuations. Due to space limitations, some details are

omitted. These can be found in Jabri et al. [2008b].
4.1 Clogging and bulging estimation
On the one hand, during the clogging/unclogging cycle,
significant mold level variations are generated and depend on
both the size and the shape of the clog. The stopper position
increases progressively during a period of time and decreases
then suddenly in order to maintain a constant flow rate into
the mold. P is thus a succession of ramps. In the sequel, this
phenomenon is modelled by an additional flow d clog to Qin

Fig. 4. Acquisition protocol for identification.

(Fig. 5). d clog has the same behaviour as P .

During each record, the water model configuration and the

casting conditions should not change because the identified
values depend on them. Three measurements are needed for
the identification algorithm, which are the level N , the
stopper position P and the flow out of the mold Qout . These
three signals are delivered by sensors.

On the other hand, it is assumed that the bulging profile at

each site between two consecutive rolls is described by a sine
wave as explained previously. Bulging affects directly the
flow out the mold because the volume of liquid steel inside
the solidified shell changes at the secondary cooling zone.
Therefore, the bulging effect can be modeled by adding an
exogenous signal d bulge to Qout (Fig. 5). d bulge has

3.2 Identification algorithm

frequencies between 0.03 and 0.1Hz. Without loss of

generality, only one frequency is considered below but results
remain valid whatever the number of frequencies may be.

The algorithm is based on the iterative prediction error

estimation method applied to a structured state space
formalism (Ljung [2002]). For this reason, a linear model of
the plant is developed. A second order Laguerre function is
used as an approximation of the time delay:

n s

1 n 4s

1 n 4s

d bulge

(1)

The plant model under the continuous state space formalism

is thus given by:
N 0 1 S

x1 0 8 n
0 1
n
x2

Sv

0 N Gn S 1

P
16 n x1 16Gn S 0 (2)
v
0
0 x2 0

where x1 and x2 are two internal variables of Laguerre

function. They do not have any physical meaning.
A state space model is thus estimated. The gain and the delay
are then inferred according to (2). It is noteworthy to mention
that neither the main controller nor the exciting signal are
explicitly used by this identification method whose inputs are
N , P and Qout .
4. COMPENSATION BASED CONTROL STRUCTURE
This section develops the compensation structure. The
clogging/unclogging and the bulging observer is first
presented. The bulging estimation is then used to calculate
the additional control input able to cancel the periodic level

Gn e - n s

+-

++

Qout
Qin
-+

1
Ss

d clog

Fig. 5. Plant model with clogging and bulging effects.

Here, the time delay is approached by a first order Pade
approximation:

e n s

1n 2 s
1n 2s

(3)

The plant model which takes the clogging and the bulging
into account, is given under the state space formalism by:

X A X B U

Y N C X

(4)

with: X T N dclog dclog d bulge dbulge q p

q p (t ) Gn P(t n ) Gn P(t ) introduced to model the Pade

approximation.

d clog 0

d bulge Abulge cos(t )

IFACMMM 2009. Via del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.

the only input available is the stopper position setpoint. This

calculation is done by inverting the actuator transfer function.
It is made easy because the observer and the prediction
blocks estimates both the disturbance and its derivative. In
the case of the water model, the actuator dynamics is
neglected. u d is simply given by:

1
1
1

0
0
0

S
S
S

0
0
0
0 0 1
0 0 0
0
0
0
, U P
A
v
0
0
0
0
1
0

0 0 0 2 0

2
0 0 0

0
0

Gn

1

S

0
0
0
0
0

0
T
, C
B
0
0
0
0
0

0

4G

0
n

0

n

ud

the time delay, its prediction may be calculated using:

d (t n ) d (t n 2 )

X ( A KC) X B U K N

(5)

where K is the observer gain chosen such as the eigenvalues

of A KC are strictly negative and to achieve desired
dynamics. This choice is made possible because the system
described in (4) is completely observable.
4.2 Feed-forward action
The compensation structure consists of three major
components which are the observer previously designed, the
prediction and the actuator inversion shown in Fig. 6 where
N * is the level setpoint, d the disturbance estimation and

u d the feed-forward action.

N *+
-

PI

d (t n )

d (t )

Prediction

d (t n )

Plant

From our point of view, this calculation could be possible

only if the amplitude of the disturbance is constant which is
usually not the case. For this reason, we propose another
approach based on the prediction of the state vector. Equation
(5) can be rewritten as follows:

X ( A K C ) X BaU a

(8)

with:
Gn

S
0
P
0

U a v , Ba
0
N

0

4Gn

n

1 k1
k1

0 k2
k2
k

0 k3
, K 3
0 k4
k4
k

0 k5
5

k
0 k6
6

It comes:

X (t n ) M X (t ) X 0
with: M e( A KC ) n , X 0

Fig. 6. Compensation structure.

Even if the observer estimates the clogging and the bulging
simultaneously, only the effect of the second disturbance will
be countered during water model experiments. Due to the
presence of the time delay, a prediction step, done by the
second block, is needed because the feed-forward action
calculated from the disturbance estimation will be necessarily
delayed through the nozzle. Finally, the predicted disturbance
estimation d (t ) cannot be directly injected in the water
n

model. An additional control input u d is computed because

IFACMMM 2009. Via del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.

(7)

Observer

d (t )

ud

(6)

In Furtmueller et al. [2005], and Furtmueller and Del Re

[2006], a simple method is proposed to implement the
prediction based on the following argument. Since the
disturbance d is periodic with a period of 2 greater than

The Luenberger observer is thus given by the following

equation (Sontag [1998]):

Actuator
inversion

d (t n )
Gn

(9)

t n

( A KC )( t n )

BaU a ( )d

In order to calculate X 0 , the vector U a is assumed constant

over the integration interval. The expression of X becomes:
0

t n ( A KC )( t )
n
X 0
e
d BaU a (t )
t

or by considering the series development of the exponential:

(( A KC) n )n
BaU a (t )
X 0 n
(n 1)!
n 0

(10)

The sum appearing in (10) is calculated off line and truncated

to a finite order for practical reasons.
Therefore, the prediction of the disturbance estimation and its
derivative can be calculated as:

Figures 8 and 9 show an example of signals recorded

according to the previous protocol.
215

Level (m m )

level setpoint
m easured level

210

d (t n ) Cd X (t n ) , d (t n ) Cd X (t n )

205

with:

Cd 0 0 0 1 0 0

200

Cd 0 0 0 0 1 0

195

5. WATER MODEL EXPERIMENTS

190

In this experiment, the utilized configuration for the water

model is outlined in table 2, where level 3 corresponds to a
half-full tundish.

50

100

150

Value
68mm
91mm
3
333mm
727 100mm2

PRBS (m m )
m easured position (m m )

Connections between the simulation environment and the

water model are established by means of Dspace real time
control platform (Fig. 7).
PC
Interface

Fig. 8. Level and setpoint for identification purposes.

Table 2: Water model configuration.

Parameter
Immersion depth
Sensor position
Tundish level
Tundish position
Mold format

Tim e (s)
185

Dspace

Isolation
amplifier

Actuators
-1

Sensors

Fig. 7. Connections between controller and water model.

The mold level is regulated at a setpoint value of 200mm
(from the top of the mold) by means of the PI described
previously. The flow out of the mold is set to 3.55m3/h and
no air is injected.
At the beginning, we start by identifying the gain and the
delay of the plant model as described in Section 3. The tuning
of the PRBS (Pseudo Random Binary Sequence) is given in
Table 3. The acquisition of the level, the stopper position and
the flow out of the mold is performed at the frequency
100Hz. The record lasts approximately 2min (that is two
consecutive sequences) and is repeated three times to
compare identification results.
Table 3: PRBS parameters.
Parameter
Register length
Amplitude
Sampling frequency

Value
5
0.5mm
0.5Hz

Tim e (s)
0

50

100

150

Fig. 9. Exciting signal and stopper position for identification

purposes.
Table 4 presents the identification results for the three
records.
Table 4: Identification results.
Record
1
2
3

Gain (l/s/mm)
0.168
0.168
0.168

Delay (s)
0.611
0.67
0.662

The gain value is the same for the three records. However,
the delay value is identified with a small uncertainty. The
retained values are 0.168 l/s/m for the gain and 0.65s for the
delay. They will be used for observer design. These values
change with the operating point and the water model
configuration. If they are modified, new trials are needed.
In order to model the bulging effect, the flow into the mold
has been disturbed at the instant 200s by a sine wave whose
frequency is 0.05Hz (that is the middle of bulging frequency

IFACMMM 2009. Via del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.

band) and amplitude is 2m3/h which generates clearly visible

mold level variations. The eigenvalues of the observer have
been tuned to 0.85, 0.95, 1.05, 0.9, 0.8 and 1 which
lead to satisfactory dynamics.

addition, it can be used by operators to monitor existing

measurements in order to detect on-line the disturbances
taking place on the machine and to activate alarms if imposed
thresholds are not met.

The adopted scenario was the following. The compensation

structure is introduced during the periods between 400 and
600s and between 800 and 1000s (Fig. 10). It does not
operate otherwise. The following figure represents the mold
level, the additional control input, the bulging estimation and
the stopper position.

Further improvements may involve robustness to model

uncertainties and changes of bulging frequencies due to
casting speed variations. It can be achieved by introducing
robust observer theory based on linear matrix inequalities
(LMI).

B u l g i n g

No
bulging

OFF

ON

OFF

220
Level (mm)

ON

200
180
0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

300

400

500
600
Time (s)

700

800

900

1000

4
Feed-forward (mm)
2
0
-2
-4
0

100

200

2
dbulge estimated (m3/h)
0
-2
0

100

200

10
Stopper position (mm)
8
6
4

100

200

Fig. 10. Relevant signals during the experiment.

The observer performs well because it reproduces the
behaviour of the sine wave injected independently from the
compensation actions.
It is important to mention that the magnitude of the stopper
position increases at the introduction of feed-forward actions.
Furthermore, it can be seen clearly that level variations
created by the bulging have nose-dived significantly when
the compensation structure is activated. They have been
reduced from 18mm to less than 1mm. The whole control
system is able to cancel the bulging effect on the level while
estimating its effect on the flow out of the mold.
6. CONCLUSIONS
We proposed a feasible compensation technique effective to
lower periodic variations of the mold level generated by the
bulging. It is based on the estimation of this disturbance and
its derivative. This structure has been validated both through
computer simulations and by means of water model
experiments which demonstrates the success of the method in
practice. Since, it does not need any change or tuning of the
controller currently implemented, this additional tool can be
easily integrated in industrial casters of the real plants. In

IFACMMM 2009. Via del Mar, Chile, 14 -16 October 2009.

REFERENCES
Dussud, M., Galichet, S., Foulloy, L.P. (1998). Application
of fuzzy logic control for continuous casting mold level
control. IEEE Transactions on Control Systems
Technology 6(2), 246-256.
Furtmueller, C., Del Re, L., Bramerdorfer, H., Moerwald, K.
(2005). Periodic disturbance suppression in a steel plant
with unstable internal feedback and delay. In Proc. of 5th
International Conference on Technology and Automation
ICTA05, Greece.
Furtmueller, C., Del Re, L. (2006). Disturbance suppression
for an industrial level control system with uncertain input
delay and uncertain gain. In Proc. International
Conference on Control Applications, Munich, Germany.
Jabri, K., Mouchette, A., Ble, B., Godoy, E., Dumur, D.
(2008a). Disturbances estimation for mold level control in
the continuous casting process. In 5th International
Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and
Robotics ICINCO, Funchal, Portugal.
Jabri, K., Mouchette, A., Ble, B., Godoy, E., Dumur, D.
(2008b). Suppression of periodic disturbances in the
continuous casting process. In Proc. Multi-conference on
Systems and Control MSC-CACD, San Antonio, USA.
Kitada, H., Kondo, O., Kusachi, H., Sasame, K. (1998). H
control of molten steel level in continuous caster. IEEE
Trans. Control Systems Technology 6(2), 200-207.
Landau, I.D., Besanon-Voda, A. (2001). Identification des
systmes, 40-46. HERMES, France.
Lee, J.D., Yim, C.H. (2000). The mechanism of unsteady
bulging and its analysis with the finite element method for
continuously cast steel. ISIJ International 40(8), 765-770.
Ljung, L. (2002). Prediction Error Estimation Methods.
Circuits, systems and signals processing 21(1), 11-21.
Matoba, Y., Yamamoto, T., Tozuda, M., Watanabe, T.,
Tomono, H. (1990). Instrumentation and control
technology for supporting high-speed casting. In 9th PTD
Process Technol. Conf. Proc.
Richalet, J., Lavielle, G., Mallet, J. (2004). La commande
prdictive, 41-43. Eyrolles, France.
Sontag, E. (1998). Mathematical control theory:
deterministic finite dimensional systems, Springer.
Thomas, B.G., Bai, H. (2001). Tundish nozzle clogging
application of computational models. In 18rd PTD Conf.
Proc., Baltimore, USA.
Yoon, U.S., Bang, I.W., Rhee, J.H., Kim, S.-Y., Lee, J.-D.,
Oh, K.H. (2002). Analysis of mold level hunching by
unsteady bulging during thin slab casting. ISIJ
International 42(10), 1103-1111.