A Digital Twin for Management of Molten Material Containment in Furnaces

Abstract

The key challenge for pyrometallurgical furnace operators is to maximize production whilst balancing the risks of failure, i.e., ensure the molten materials remain contained in these furnaces until the next rebuild. To understand this risk, a deep understanding of the various failure modes is necessary, as well as the barriers that should be in place to prevent and mitigate them. The information needed to inform this risk, such as process and equipment conditions, changes over time and is often distributed across several people and systems within an organization. These circumstances make it difficult to get a "comprehensive picture" of the asset condition to evaluate whether the risk of molten material containment is becoming unacceptably high at any point in time. Hatch has applied the digital twin concept to online monitoring of risk barrier status using the risk-bowtie methodology and real-time asset and operational information to visualize the live risk profile of a particular unwanted event; in this case, a runout.