Method for operating an arc furnace comprising at least one electrode, regulating and/or control device, machine-readable program code, data carrier and arc furnace for carrying out said method

A regulating and/or control device for an arc furnace, in which solid material fed to the arc furnace is melted by means of an arc formed by the at least one electrode, the device comprising:

• a non-transitory machine-readable program code which has control commands which when executed:
• uses a model for enforced oscillations to determine a measure of a mass of part of a solid material that is caked on an enclosure of the arc furnace, including:
• generating a current evaluation signal based on a detected current supplied to the at least one electrode,
• generating an oscillation evaluation signal based on detected sound oscillations of the enclosure,
• determining a phase shift between the current evaluation signal and the oscillation evaluation signal at one or more frequencies, and
• calculating the measure of the mass of the part of the solid material that is caked on the enclosure based on the determined phase shift determined, and
• at least one of control or regulate a process variable of the arc furnace of the mass.

A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing program code for a regulating and/or control device for an arc furnace, in which solid material fed to the arc furnace is melted by means of an arc formed by the at least one electrode, the program code having control commands which when executed:

• uses a model for enforced oscillations to determine a measure of a mass of part of a solid material that is caked on an enclosure of the are furnace, including:
• generating a current evaluation signal based on a detected current supplied to the at least one electrode,
• generating an oscillation evaluation signal based on detected sound oscillations of the enclosure,
• determining a phase shift between the current evaluation signal and the oscillation evaluation signal at one or more frequencies, and
• calculating the measure of the mass of the part of the solid material that is caked on the enclosure based on the determined phase shift determined, and
• at least one of control or regulate a process variable of the arc furnace based on of the mass.

An arc furnace comprising at least at least one electrode, comprising an electrode current detection device for detecting an electrode current supplied to the at least one electrode, comprising structure-borne sound sensors for detecting structure-borne sound oscillations of an enclosure of the arc furnace, and comprising a device for at least one of regulating and control, the device comprising:

• a non-transitory machine-readable program code which has control commands which when executed:
• uses a model for enforced oscillations to determine a measured of a mass of part of a solid material that is caked on an enclosure of the arc furnace, including:
• generating a current evaluation signal based on a detected current supplied to the at least one electrode,
• generating an oscillation evaluation signal based on detected sound oscillations of the enclosure,
• determining a phase shift between the current evaluation signal and the oscillation signal at one or more frequencies, and
• calculating the measure of the mass of the part of the solid material that is caked on the enclosure based on the determined phase shift determined, and
• at least one of control or regulate a process variable of the arc furnace based on the determined measure of the mass,
• the electrode current detection device and the structure-borne sound sensors being operatively connected to the device.