Field test of noncontact high temperature fiber optic transducer in a steel production plant

One of the key steel processing parts is the casting. Steel is typically cast into continuous slabs or bars whose temperature is in the range 800-1200/spl deg/C. The control of the temperature during the casting process determines the solidifying process from the liquid steel. In order to measure the higher temperature of the casting process the use of the capabilities of short wavelength (around 1 /spl mu/m) is feasible and hence, silica based fiber optics can be used. The latter represents a simplification of the transducer head and the channel with regard to others composed by hollow fiber, sapphire fiber or quartz fiber. In this paper, we focus on the temperature data acquisition with the optical fiber system during the casting process and on the performance of the system related to the most expensive and nonfixed solutions such as thermographic camera.