Simultaneously estimation for surface heat fluxes of steel slab in a reheating furnace based on DMC predictive control

•The predictive control theory is adopted.•An inversion scheme based on DMC is established.•Upper, side and lower surface heat fluxes of slab are estimated based DMC.•A respective regularization is proposed to improve the stability of results.

The predictive control theory is utilized for the research of a simultaneous estimation of heat fluxes through the upper, side and lower surface of a steel slab in a walking beam type rolling steel reheating furnace. An inverse algorithm based on dynamic matrix control (DMC) is established. That is, each surface heat flux of a slab is simultaneously estimated through rolling optimization on the basis of temperature measurements in selected points of its interior by utilizing step response function as predictive model of a slab's temperature. The reliability of the DMC results is enhanced without prior assuming specific functions of heat fluxes over a period of future time. The inverse algorithm proposed a respective regularization to effectively improve the stability of the estimated results by considering obvious strength differences between the upper as well as lower and side surface heat fluxes of the slab.