Optimal control of multiphase steel production

Abstract

An optimal control problem for the production of multiphase steel is investigated that takes into account phase transformations in the steel slab. The state equations are a semilinear heat equation coupled with an ordinary differential equation, that describes the evolution of the steel microstructure. The time-dependent heat transfer coefficient serves as a control function. Necessary and sufficient optimality conditions for the control problem are derived. For the numerical solution of the control problem, a reduced sequential quadratic programming method with a primal-dual active set strategy is developed. The numerical results are presented for the optimal control of a cooling line in the production of hot-rolled Mo–Mn dual phase steel. © 2019, The Author(s)