Application of time-series analysis in control of chemical composition of grey cast iron

The aim of the paper was an attempt at applying the time-series analysis to the control of the melting process of grey cast iron in production conditions. The production data were collected in one of Polish foundries in the form of spectrometer printouts. The quality of the alloy was controlled by its chemical composition in about 0.5 hour time intervals. The procedure of preparation of the industrial data is presented, including OCR-based method of transformation to the electronic numerical format as well as generation of records related to particular weekdays. The computations for time-series analysis were made using the author's own software having a wide range of capabilities, including detection of important periodicity in data as well as regression modeling of the residual data, i.e. the values obtained after subtraction of general trend, trend of variability amplitude and the periodical component. The most interesting results of the analysis include: significant 2-measurements periodicity of percentages of all components, significance 7-day periodicity of silicon content measured at the end of a day and the relatively good prediction accuracy obtained without modeling of residual data for various types of expected values. Some practical conclusions have been formulated, related to possible improvements in the melting process control procedures as well as more general tips concerning applications of time-series analysis in foundry production.