Special Considerations when Planning Experiments in a Continuous Process

ABSTRACT

Discontinuous processes dominate experimental applications in practice as well as in literature. Continuous processes constitute a significant part of goods production, and the need to gain knowledge using experiments are as relevant in such environments as in, for example, parts production. We argue that the characteristics of continuous processes affect the prerequisites for experimental efforts to such an extent that they need special attention. To describe considerations when planning experiments in a continuous process, experiments performed in a blast furnace process are studied. We propose a tentative list of special considerations, which are discussed and summarized in a thirteen-step check list.

KEYWORDS:

• design of experiments
• engineering judgments
• experimental design
• industrial experimentation
• process control

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors are grateful to all members of the LKAB “EBF methodology development project” for important contribution to the results presented here. We also gratefully acknowledge the financial support from LKAB that made this research possible. The authors thank the editor and the reviewers for their valuable suggestions for improvement of this article.