Vacuum arc remelting is a secondary melting process used to produce a variety of segregation sensitive and reactive metal alloys. The present day VAR practice for superalloys involves, typically, melting electrodes of 17'' into ingots of 20'' in diameter. Even larger diameter forging stock is desirable. However, beyond 20'' ingots of superalloys are increasingly prone to segregation defects if solidification is not adequately controlled. In the past years a new generation of model-based controllers was developed to prevent segregation in VAR by controlling melt rate, or the total amount of power flowing into the liquid pool. These controllers were seen as significant improvements in the industry of remelting processes, but these controllers were still focusing on the melting sub-process and ignoring ingot solidification. Accurate control of the liquid pool profile is expected to result in segregation-free ingots, but unfortunately a controller capable of stabilizing the solidification front in VAR is currently not available. The goal of the proposed research is to develop a cyber-enabled controller for VAR pool depth control that will enhance the capabilities of current technologies. More specifically, the objectives of this research are threefold. Firstly, a control-friendly model is proposed based on a high-fidelity ingot solidification model and is coupled to a thermal model of electrode melting. Secondly, sequential Monte Carlo estimators are proposed to replace the traditional Kalman filter, used in the previous VAR controllers. And finally, a model predictive controller (MPC) is designed based on the proposed reduced-order model. The time-critical characteristics of these methods are studied, and the feasibility of their real-time implementation is reported. / text

Friction stir welding has become a popular forging technique used in many applications. The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) evaluates this method to seal the 5 cm thick copper canisters that will contain the spent nuclear fuel. To produce repetitive, high quality welds, the process must be controlled, and today a cascade controller is used to keep the desired stir zone temperature. In this thesis, the control system is extended to also include a plunge depth controller. Two different approaches are evaluated; the first attempt is a decentralized solution where the cascaded temperature controller is kept, and the second approach uses a non-linear model predictive controller for both depth and temperature. Suitable models have been derived and used to design the controllers; a simpler model for the decentralized control and a more extensive, full model used in the non-linear model predictive controller that relates all the important process variables. The two controller designs are compared according to important performance measures, and the achieved increase in performance with the more complex non-linear model predictive controller is evaluated. The non-linear model predictive controller has not been implemented on the real process. Hence, simulations of the closed loop systems using the full model have been used to compare and evaluate the control strategies. The decentralized controller has been implemented on the real system. Two welds have been made using plunge depth control with excellent experimental results, confirming that the decentralized controller design proposed in this thesis can be successfully used. Even though the controller manages to regulate the plunge depth with satisfying performance, simulations indicate that the non-linear model predictive controller achieves even better closed loop performance. This controller manages to compensate for the cross-connections between the process variables, and the resulting closed loop system is almost decoupled. Further research will reveal which control design that will finally be used. / ''Friction stir welding'' har blivit en populär svetsmetod inom många olika tillämpningar. På Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB (SKB) undersöks möjligheten att använda metoden för att försegla de 5 cm tjocka kopparkapslarna som kommer innehålla det använda kärnbränslet. För att kunna producera repeterbara svetsar utav hög kvalité krävs det att processen regleras. Idag löses detta med en temperaturregulator som reglerar svetszonens temperatur. I detta examensarbete utökas styrsystemet med en regulator för svetsdjupet. Två olika lösningar har utvärderats; först en decentraliserad lösning där temperatur-regulatorn behålls och sedan en lösning med en olinjär modellprediktiv reglering (MPC) som reglerar både djup och temperatur. Passande modeller har tagits fram och har använts för att designa regulatorerna; en enklare modell för den decentraliserade regulatorn och en utökad, komplett modell som används i den olinjära MPC:n och som beskriver alla viktiga variabler i processen. Viktiga prestandamått har jämförts för de båda regulatorstrukturerna och även prestandaökningen med den olinjära MPC:n har utvärderats. Då denna regulator inte har implementerats på den verkliga processen har simuleringar av den kompletta modellen använts för att jämföra och utvärdera regulatorstrukturerna. Den decentraliserade regulatorn har implementerats och testats på processen. Två svetsar har gjorts och de har givit utmärkta resultat, vilket visar att regulatorstrukturen som presenteras i rapporten fungerar bra för reglering av svetsdjupet. Trots att den implementerade regulatorn klarar av att reglera svetsdjupet med godkänt resultat, så visar simuleringar att den olinjära MPC:n ger ännu bättre reglerprestanda. Denna regulator kompenserar för korskopplingar i systemet och resulterar i ett slutet system som är nästan helt frikopplat. Ytterligare forskning kommer avgöra vilken av strategierna som kommer att användas i slutprodukten.