Ladle hot spot detection – CIRA

Ladle hot spot detection – CIRA is a 24x7x365 automated infrared eye for tracking and thermal analysis / hot spot detection of static / in movement objects such as Ladles, Hot Metal Torpedo Cars, Vessel Furnaces, Electrical Arc Furnaces, etc.
CIRA automatically grabs thermal images – with no human intervention – processes the images, triggers warnings or alarms and stores all the information to be consumed by any client connected to the existing intranet.
CIRA has complex artificial vision algorithms to automatically detect a ladle or hot car going by in front of the cameras, and grabs live video and one centered picture for each camera in the system. Information for each object such as average temperature, minimum, maximum, deviation, size of the hot spots, centered images and video streaming can be accessed through any standard internet browser.
The typical configuration is 2 cameras for hot metal torpedo cars, and 5 cameras for ladle hot spot detection.

Key Benefits

  • Avoidance of a breakout and its consequences in safety, time, material, labor and costs
  • Totally automated process. No human intervention is needed
  • All objects (ladle, torpedoes cars) are sensed and tracked.
  • Prevent probable accidents
  • Does not affect continuous workflow of the plant.
  • Helps to plan refractory re-line and maintenance schedule.
  • Small hot spots are detected in early stages

Main Features

  • 2 cameras to Inspect both sides of the torpedo cars / 5 cameras to inspect 360° ladle surface & bottom
  • Front end 100% web-based RIA (Rich Internet Applications) Technology
  • Works with most popular web browsers: MS Internet Explorer™, Firefox™, Chrome™ and Safari™
  • Fully Implemented using the latest Microsoft™ technology: Microsoft .NET™, Silverlight™, WCF and MS SQL Server 2008™
  • Grayed out images to ease Hot Spot visualization in three colors: Yellow, Orange and Red
  • Pixel-by-Pixel temperature inspection
  • Configurable alarm/warning priority and Temperature thresholds
  • Send High Priority Alarms through EMAIL to CELL PHONES
  • Large Historical data capacity
  • Links CAR ID information to thermal analysis and performs target tracking
  • Links refractory maintenance information with warnings / alarms and tracking information
  • Scalability and Open system: connect the system to your existing floor plant and retrieve system information.

Technology

  • State-of-the-art cameras make the system very reliable, with high definition pictures and up to 60 fps. The best IR cameras available in the market.
  • Open system and standard technologies: C# .NET and OO design.
  • New technologies lead to high performance: NVIDIA CUDA.
  • Microsoft Silverlight™ based.
  • Microsoft SQL Server™

Applications

  • Hot spot detection for ladles
  • Hot spot detection for Torpedo Cars
  • Vessel Furnace Hot spot detection
  • Slag detection at tapping time
  • EAF Hot Spot detection
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