| The objective of this work was to develop a real-time data acquisition system to be utilized at North Star Steel Texas (NSST), Inc., Beaumont, Texas. The designed system fully exploits the virtual instrument paradigm. It is an interactive hardware/software measurement unit that acquires, monitors, and logs various temperatures and related variables of the NSST rod mill. The process of steel production is coupled with the virtual instrument by means of a plug-in data acquisition board. In addition to the parallel connection, sequence and billet numbers pertaining to various grades of steel are obtained via a serial communication port. Real-time data logging is performed in a dynamically created Microsoft Access database file.; The novel instrument offers interactive settings of copious system parameters, has a clear and detailed front panel, and is exceptionally easy to use. Future upgrades of the system are drastically simplified by adoption of the Microsoft Windows computer operating platform. |
