Prediction of Silicon Content in a Blast Furnace via Machine Learning: A Comprehensive Processing and Modeling Pipeline
Silicon content plays an important role in determining the operational efficiency of blast furnaces (BFs) and their downstream processes in integrated steelmaking; however, existing sampling methods and first-principles models are somewhat limited in their capability and flexibility. Current data-based prediction models primarily rely on a limited set of manually selected furnace parameters. Additionally, different BFs present a diverse set of operating parameters and state variables that are known to directly influence the hot metal’s silicon content, such as fuel injection, blast temperature, and raw material charge composition, among other process variables that have their own impacts. The expansiveness of the parameter set adds complexity to parameter selection and processing. This highlights the need for a comprehensive methodology to integrate and select from all relevant parameters for accurate silicon content prediction. Providing accurate silicon content predictions would enable operators to adjust furnace conditions dynamically, improving safety and reducing economic risk. To address these issues, a two-stage approach is proposed. First, a generalized data processing scheme is proposed to accommodate diverse furnace parameters. Second, a robust modeling pipeline is used to establish a machine learning (ML) model capable of predicting hot metal silicon content with reasonable accuracy. The method employed herein predicted the average Si content of the upcoming furnace cast with an accuracy of 91% among 200 target predictions for a specific furnace provisioned by the XGBoost model. This prediction is achieved using only the past shift’s operating conditions, which should be available in real time. This performance provides a strong baseline for the modeling approach with potential for further improvement through provision of real-time features.