Optimizing energy consumption of continuous annealing line regarding quality and size values and modelling operator be-haviour during quality and size transition

During the annealing of steel, it is very important to keep the strip temperature at the desired value at the outlet of each furnace to produce quality products. The annealing temperature of each strip varies depending on the annealing quality, strip thickness, strip width, strip speed and furnace temperature. Optimized temperature of furnace is important to ensure adequate energy costs in the competitive market during production. It was aimed to find optimum annealing temperatures under furnace limitations by using multi-purpose decision making technique for ten coils. In the second part of this study, the process cannot be met by mathematical models since the heating quantities during the quality and size transitions exceed the furnace capacity limits. The operators' applications are modeled by YSA in these cases. Operator behaviors for annealing furnaces was recorded for the last 50 % of the coil lengths during annealing quality or coil dimensions changes.