British researchers come up with intelligent design process for furnaces
Staff Writer | November 4, 2022

Smelter. (Image courtesy of Mechatherm International Limited).

Researchers at England’s Aston University and Mechatherm International Limited (MIL) have developed a more intelligent design process for furnaces and ancillary equipment for the global aluminium industry.


According to the academic-industry team, the project has considerably reduced product development time and costs and has a projected annual sales turnover of more than £7.4 million over the next three years.

MIL is a leading provider of casthouse equipment for the aluminium industry. The company currently operates under the challenging circumstances imposed by Brexit and the covid-19 pandemic, which has seen its costs increase over a number of years.

To create further growth, the firm decided it was essential to streamline its engineering practices, resulting in reduced overheads.

Their collaboration with Aston University has allowed them to reach this objective, as it led to the optimization of the company’s automation techniques used in the design of its products.

Feeding an AI system with millions of records of data, the company was able to automate the process of advising furnace operators when action should be taken to maximize a machine’s efficiency. This is particularly useful when the time comes for a furnace to receive or transfer material, as reducing the delays associated with normal operation can increase efficiency.

A simple traffic light system was installed on a new screen giving operators an easy visual to make the choice to attend to the load.

” In technology terms, this would equate to using an offline brain watching and learning how the furnace operates, gauging energy use per cycle and suggesting when the optimum parameters have been met,” a media statement by MIL reads.

The joint project has also resulted in a high level of upfront detailed engineering, but at the fraction of the time and cost.

“This partnership has allowed us to produce a system which has saved time and resources, enabling us additional time to develop innovative solutions for the material recycling market and alternative hydrogen-fueled furnace concepts,” Owen Tollerfield, chief mechanical engineer at Mechatherm International Limited, said in the press brief.