Modeling and Experimental Analysis for Modernization of 100-t EAF

This paper presents an experimental investigation and modeling solutions of an electric arc furnace (EAF) with 100-t capacity used for steel melting in order to evaluate the best option for improvement. Experimental results show that EAFs represent a substantial source of electric disturbances such as voltage fluctuations, flicker, harmonics, and imbalance between phases. Improvement of the energetic performances of an EAF imposes a careful technical and economical analysis. The static voltampere reactive compensator solution is the best one for compensating the reactive energy and increasing the power factor but has the highest costs. Also, we evaluate existing processes' equipment performance, the point of improvement opportunities for the best operating efficiency. Substantial reductions in the energy consumption and in the defects of mechanical nature are obtained by the proposed automation solution of the auxiliary installations.