Fuzzy Tension Control Scheme for Roughing and Intermediate Rolling Mills

Control of hot metal rolling process plays an important role in assuring high product quality and safe process operation. Although there have been many looper control technologies recently developed for finishing rolling processes, looperless interstand tension control of roughing and intermediate rolling mills remains a hard-to-solve problem. This paper proposes a current comparison based intelligent fuzzy tension control scheme for roughing and intermediate rolling. Incorporating a novel decoupling strategy, the presented scheme is able to realize tension-free control of multiple rolling stands. Results from a virtual rolling test are given to demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed control.