阅读说明：本技术 一种炉辊控制方法和装置 (Furnace roller control method and device ) 是由 霍雄飞 张安 刘国梁 刘向斌 苗贺武 张路 兰晓栋 于 2021-09-15 设计创作，主要内容包括：本发明公开了一种炉辊控制方法和装置,应用于对退火炉的控制,退火炉内设置依次排布的N组炉辊,每组炉辊包括M个炉辊,N≥2、M≤3,N和M为正整数,控制方法包括：判断是否接收到退火炉的异常停机信号；若是,控制所述退火炉内的奇数组炉辊和偶数组炉辊以相反的方向进行转动。本发明的控制方法避免了退火炉内炉辊因停车受热不均导致的变形卡阻的问题,延长了炉辊的使用寿命,有效的控制退火炉内积钢,减少带钢褶皱甚至断带的发生。(The invention discloses a furnace roller control method and a furnace roller control device, which are applied to the control of an annealing furnace, wherein N groups of furnace rollers which are sequentially distributed are arranged in the annealing furnace, each group of furnace rollers comprises M furnace rollers, N is more than or equal to 2, M is less than or equal to 3, N and M are positive integers, and the control method comprises the following steps: judging whether an abnormal shutdown signal of the annealing furnace is received or not; and if so, controlling the odd-numbered groups of furnace rollers and the even-numbered groups of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace to rotate in opposite directions. The control method of the invention avoids the problem of deformation and blockage caused by uneven heating during shutdown of the furnace roller in the annealing furnace, prolongs the service life of the furnace roller, effectively controls the steel accumulation in the annealing furnace, and reduces the occurrence of strip steel wrinkles and even strip breakage.)

1. A furnace roller control method is applied to control of an annealing furnace, N groups of furnace rollers which are sequentially arranged are arranged in the annealing furnace, each group of furnace rollers comprises M furnace rollers, N is more than or equal to 2, M is less than or equal to 3, and N and M are positive integers, and is characterized in that the control method comprises the following steps:

judging whether an abnormal shutdown signal of the annealing furnace is received or not;

and if so, controlling the odd-numbered groups of furnace rollers and the even-numbered groups of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace to rotate in opposite directions.

2. The furnace roller control method according to claim 1, wherein the judging whether the abnormal stop signal of the annealing furnace is received comprises:

detecting whether the furnace roller stops rotating or not;

and if so, judging whether the duration of the rotation stopping is greater than a threshold value.

3. The furnace roller control method according to claim 1, further comprising, in the annealing furnace, an entrance furnace roller disposed before the N sets of furnace rollers and at an entrance of the annealing furnace and an exit furnace roller disposed after the N sets of furnace rollers and at an exit of the annealing furnace, and further comprising, after the determining whether the abnormal shutdown signal of the annealing furnace is received:

and if so, controlling the inlet furnace roller to rotate in a first direction, and controlling the outlet furnace roller to rotate in a second direction, wherein the first direction is a direction along which the inlet of the annealing furnace exits, and the second direction is a direction along which the outlet of the annealing furnace exits.

4. The furnace roller control method according to claim 1, wherein before the determining whether the abnormal shutdown signal of the annealing furnace is received, the method further comprises:

calibrating a transmission number for each furnace roller in the N groups of furnace rollers, comprising:

calibrating a first transmission number for the odd group of furnace rollers, wherein the first transmission number comprises a first rotating speed and a first rotating direction of the odd group of furnace rollers;

and calibrating a second transmission number for the even number group of furnace rollers, wherein the second transmission number comprises a second rotating speed and a second rotating direction of the even number group of furnace rollers, the first rotating speed is equal to the second rotating speed, and the first rotating direction is opposite to the second rotating direction.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein before controlling the odd and even sets of furnace rolls in the annealing furnace to rotate in opposite directions, the method further comprises:

acquiring furnace section information of the N groups of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace;

acquiring a target transmission number corresponding to a furnace roller set in a corresponding furnace section based on the furnace section information;

and controlling the odd-numbered group of furnace rollers and the even-numbered group of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace to rotate in opposite directions based on the target transmission number.

6. The furnace roller control method according to claim 5, wherein the furnace section information includes:

a low temperature section and a high temperature section.

7. The furnace roller control method according to claim 6, wherein the first rotation speed and the second rotation speed are both 8 to 12m/min in the high temperature section.

8. The furnace roller control method according to claim 1, wherein the number of furnace rollers in the odd-numbered group of furnace rollers and the even-numbered group of furnace rollers is two.

9. The utility model provides a stove roller controlling means, is applied to the control to the annealing stove, set up N group's stove roller of arranging in proper order in the annealing stove, every group stove roller includes M stove rollers, and N is greater than or equal to 2, M is less than or equal to 3, and N and M are positive integer, its characterized in that, controlling means includes:

the judging module is used for judging whether an abnormal shutdown signal of the annealing furnace is received or not;

and the control module is used for controlling the odd-numbered groups of furnace rollers and the even-numbered groups of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace to rotate in opposite directions after receiving the abnormal stop signal of the annealing furnace.

10. An electronic device, comprising:

a memory for storing a computer program;

a processor for executing the computer program to carry out the steps of the method of any one of claims 1 to 8.

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of automatic control of furnace rollers in the metallurgical industry, in particular to a furnace roller control method and a furnace roller control device.

Background

The continuous horizontal annealing unit mainly produces high-grade non-oriented silicon steel, the temperature of the annealing furnace is high, strip steel enters the annealing furnace of the annealing unit through a cleaning process after being uncoiled by an uncoiler, the annealing furnace is of a horizontal structure, and the bottom of the annealing furnace is driven by a furnace roller. The furnace roller always rotates to transport the strip steel in the normal production process, and the furnace roller is heated uniformly in the rotating process and cannot be bent and deformed.

However, the annealing furnace is shut down due to various reasons in the production process, and the furnace roller is easy to bend and deform under the shutdown working condition due to uneven heating, so that the furnace roller is blocked by rotation, and the problem of belt accumulation in the furnace is caused.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention discloses a furnace roller control method and a furnace roller control device, which aim to solve the problem that a furnace roller of an annealing furnace is bent and deformed due to uneven heating under the working condition of shutdown.

The embodiment of the invention provides the following scheme:

in a first aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a furnace roller control method, which is applied to control of an annealing furnace, wherein N groups of furnace rollers are arranged in the annealing furnace in sequence, each group of furnace rollers includes M furnace rollers, N is greater than or equal to 2, M is less than or equal to 3, and N and M are positive integers, and the control method includes:

judging whether an abnormal shutdown signal of the annealing furnace is received or not;

and if so, controlling the odd-numbered groups of furnace rollers and the even-numbered groups of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace to rotate in opposite directions.

In an alternative embodiment, the determining whether the abnormal shutdown signal of the annealing furnace is received comprises:

detecting whether the furnace roller stops rotating or not;

and if so, judging whether the duration of the rotation stopping is greater than a threshold value.

In an optional embodiment, in the annealing furnace, further comprising an inlet furnace roller arranged before the N groups of furnace rollers and at the inlet of the annealing furnace and an outlet furnace roller arranged after the N groups of furnace rollers and at the outlet of the annealing furnace, after the determining whether the abnormal shutdown signal of the annealing furnace is received, further comprising:

and if so, controlling the inlet furnace roller to rotate in a first direction, and controlling the outlet furnace roller to rotate in a second direction, wherein the first direction is a direction along which the inlet of the annealing furnace exits, and the second direction is a direction along which the outlet of the annealing furnace exits.

In an optional embodiment, before the determining whether the abnormal shutdown signal of the annealing furnace is received, the method further comprises the following steps:

calibrating a transmission number for each furnace roller in the N groups of furnace rollers, comprising:

calibrating a first transmission number for the odd group of furnace rollers, wherein the first transmission number comprises a first rotating speed and a first rotating direction of the odd group of furnace rollers;

and calibrating a second transmission number for the even number group of furnace rollers, wherein the second transmission number comprises a second rotating speed and a second rotating direction of the even number group of furnace rollers, the first rotating speed is equal to the second rotating speed, and the first rotating direction is opposite to the second rotating direction.

In an alternative embodiment, before controlling the odd-numbered set of furnace rollers and the even-numbered set of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace to rotate in opposite directions, the method further comprises:

acquiring furnace section information of the N groups of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace;

acquiring a target transmission number corresponding to a furnace roller set in a corresponding furnace section based on the furnace section information;

and controlling the odd-numbered group of furnace rollers and the even-numbered group of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace to rotate in opposite directions based on the target transmission number.

In an alternative embodiment, the furnace section information includes:

a low temperature section and a high temperature section.

In an optional embodiment, in the high temperature section, the first rotation speed and the second rotation speed are both 8-12 m/min.

In an alternative embodiment, the number of the furnace rollers in the odd number group of furnace rollers and the even number group of furnace rollers is two.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a furnace roller control device, which is applied to control an annealing furnace, wherein N groups of furnace rollers are sequentially arranged in the annealing furnace, each group of furnace rollers includes M furnace rollers, N is greater than or equal to 2, M is less than or equal to 3, N and M are positive integers, and the control device includes:

the judging module is used for judging whether an abnormal shutdown signal of the annealing furnace is received or not;

and the control module is used for controlling the odd-numbered groups of furnace rollers and the even-numbered groups of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace to rotate in opposite directions after receiving the abnormal stop signal of the annealing furnace.

In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides an electronic device, including:

a memory for storing a computer program;

a processor for executing the computer program to implement the steps of the method of any of the first aspects.

Compared with the prior art, the furnace roller control method and the furnace roller control device provided by the invention have the following advantages:

1. the control method is applied to the control of the annealing furnace, the odd-numbered groups of furnace rollers and the even-numbered groups of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace are controlled to rotate in opposite directions by receiving the abnormal stop signal of the annealing furnace, the furnace rollers are heated more uniformly in the continuous rotating process, the problem of deformation and blockage caused by nonuniform heating during stopping of the furnace rollers in the annealing furnace is avoided, the service life of the furnace rollers is prolonged, the steel accumulation in the annealing furnace is effectively controlled, and the wrinkles and even strip breakage of strip steel are reduced.

2. The control method of the invention has good applicability and low cost, does not need to carry out hardware modification, and can be applied to updating and upgrading of the existing annealing furnace control method.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present specification or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings needed to be used in the embodiments will be briefly described below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present specification, and it is obvious for those skilled in the art that other drawings can be obtained according to the drawings without creative efforts.

FIG. 1 is a flow chart of a method for controlling a furnace roller according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a structure of an annealing furnace according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a furnace roller torque and rotation speed monitoring chart of the control method of the embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 4 is a control method furnace roller torque and rotation speed monitoring chart of the comparative example of the present invention;

fig. 5 is a schematic structural diagram of a furnace roller control device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Description of reference numerals:

1-annealing furnace, 2-inlet, 3-outlet, 4-strip steel, 5-furnace roller, 6-odd group of furnace rollers, 7-even group of furnace rollers, 8-inlet furnace roller, 9-outlet furnace roller, 10-low temperature section and 11-high temperature section.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be described clearly and completely with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, rather than all embodiments, and all other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments of the present invention belong to the scope of protection of the embodiments of the present invention.

Referring to fig. 1, fig. 1 is a flowchart of a furnace roller control method provided in an embodiment of the present invention, which is applied to control an annealing furnace, wherein N groups of furnace rollers are arranged in the annealing furnace in sequence, each group of furnace rollers includes M furnace rollers, N is greater than or equal to 2, M is less than or equal to 3, N and M are positive integers, and the control method includes:

s11, judging whether an abnormal shutdown signal of the annealing furnace is received or not;

referring to fig. 2 specifically, fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of an annealing furnace according to an embodiment of the present invention, the annealing furnace is a horizontal structure, two ends of the annealing furnace are respectively provided with an inlet and an outlet, a heating system is disposed inside the annealing furnace, a strip steel integrally passes through the annealing furnace from the inlet and the outlet during annealing, the strip steel is supported by a plurality of furnace rollers to be conveyed to the outlet, the strip steel enters the annealing furnace after being uncoiled by an uncoiler according to an annealing process through a cleaning process, and the strip steel sequentially passes through a low temperature section, a high temperature section and a low temperature section, so as to complete annealing of the strip steel. The furnace rollers are arranged in the annealing furnace at intervals, each furnace roller is controlled to rotate and stop by a corresponding motor, the number of the furnace rollers is about 200 under normal conditions, the number of the furnace rollers of the annealing furnace applied to high-grade non-oriented silicon steel is 228, the motor control can be controlled by a PLC control system, and other industrial control modes can be adopted. When mechanical failure, heating system failure or upstream and downstream process failure of the heating furnace occurs in the annealing process, the roller stops transmission and sends an abnormal shutdown signal.

In an alternative embodiment, determining whether an abnormal shutdown signal for the annealing furnace is received comprises:

detecting whether the furnace roller stops rotating or not;

if yes, judging whether the duration of stopping rotation is larger than a threshold value.

Whether the furnace roller stops rotating or not can be judged by reading encoder information of the motor, the threshold value can be freely set according to actual conditions, usually set to be 2min, and whether an abnormal stop signal of the annealing furnace is received or not is accurately judged.

And S12, if yes, controlling the odd-numbered furnace rollers and the even-numbered furnace rollers in the annealing furnace to rotate in opposite directions.

The odd number of groups of furnace rollers and the even number of groups of furnace rollers are distinguished from each other according to the arrangement sequence of each group from one end of the annealing furnace to the other end, the number of the furnace rollers in each group can be odd or even, the number of the furnace rollers in each group is not more than 3, the probability of the suspension generated between the furnace rollers by more than 3 strip steels is increased, and the strip breakage is easy to occur. After the odd-number groups of furnace rollers and the even-number groups of furnace rollers rotate in opposite directions, the band steel does not translate in the state, the band steel can be kept to be relatively static with the whole furnace rollers, and the furnace rollers are heated uniformly in the rotating process to avoid deformation.

When the odd-numbered group of furnace rollers and the even-numbered group of furnace rollers are controlled to rotate in opposite directions, the odd-numbered group of furnace rollers can be controlled to rotate in the forward direction, and the even-numbered group of furnace rollers can rotate in the reverse direction.

And after the abnormity of the annealing furnace is eliminated, controlling the furnace roller to stop, recovering to the initial motion state, and continuing to anneal the strip steel. The furnace roller rotates in the opposite direction, and the starting and stopping of the furnace roller can be controlled according to the speed slope of the annealing state, the speed slope of the annealing state is determined during the design of an annealing production line and is most matched with an on-site process and equipment, so that the original speed slope of a unit is directly adopted, and the equipment is stopped as fast as possible on the premise of not being damaged by impact.

In an optional embodiment, in the annealing furnace, the annealing furnace further comprises an inlet furnace roller arranged before the N groups of furnace rollers and at the inlet of the annealing furnace, and an outlet furnace roller arranged after the N groups of furnace rollers and at the outlet of the annealing furnace, and after determining whether the abnormal stop signal of the annealing furnace is received, the annealing furnace further comprises:

if so, controlling the inlet furnace roller to rotate in a first direction, and controlling the outlet furnace roller to rotate in a second direction, wherein the first direction is a direction along the inlet of the annealing furnace to withdraw, and the second direction is a direction along the outlet of the annealing furnace.

In the normal continuous production process, in order to guarantee the continuity of the production process, the front and the back two rolls of band steel are connected through on-line welding, then the band steel is drawn to continuously pass through the annealing furnace, the inlet furnace roller and the outlet furnace roller rotate in the first direction and the second direction respectively, the band steel at the inlet and the outlet can be prevented from being pulled into the furnace to cause the follow-up welding of the band steel, and the continuous operation of a production line can be guaranteed after the fault of the annealing furnace is eliminated.

In an optional embodiment, before the step of judging whether the abnormal shutdown signal of the annealing furnace is received, the method further comprises the following steps:

calibrating the transmission number of each furnace roller in the N groups of furnace rollers, comprising:

calibrating a first transmission number for the odd groups of furnace rollers, wherein the first transmission number comprises a first rotating speed and a first rotating direction of the odd groups of furnace rollers;

and calibrating a second transmission number for the even number of groups of furnace rollers, wherein the second transmission number comprises a second rotating speed and a second rotating direction of the even number of groups of furnace rollers, the first rotating speed is equal to the second rotating speed, and the first rotating direction is opposite to the second rotating direction.

The first rotating direction can be forward rotation or reverse rotation, when the first rotating direction is forward rotation, the second rotating direction is reverse rotation, and when the first rotating direction is reverse rotation, the second rotating direction is forward rotation.

The first transmission number and the second transmission number are addresses corresponding to each furnace roller in a control algorithm, and because the number of the furnace rollers is large, setting the speed and the direction of each furnace roller during control is complicated, a control program is bulky, control errors are easy to occur, and the operation speed of a controller is influenced. The corresponding transmission number is calibrated for each furnace roller to carry out addressing assignment, each furnace roller corresponds to a unique transmission number, pointer addressing can be carried out according to the transmission number of each furnace roller and edited logical relations, the issuing speed and direction of the pointer addressing in batches are automatically set, and control is simpler and more efficient.

In an alternative embodiment, before controlling the odd-numbered set of furnace rollers and the even-numbered set of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace to rotate in opposite directions, the method further comprises the following steps:

acquiring furnace section information of N groups of furnace rollers in an annealing furnace;

acquiring a target transmission number corresponding to a furnace roller set in a corresponding furnace section based on the furnace section information;

and controlling the odd-numbered group of furnace rollers and the even-numbered group of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace to rotate in opposite directions based on the target transmission number.

In an alternative embodiment, the furnace section information includes:

a low temperature section and a high temperature section.

In an alternative embodiment, the first rotation speed and the second rotation speed are both 8-12 m/min in the high temperature section. And in the low-temperature section, the rotating speed of the furnace roller is lower than that in the high-temperature section, and is specifically 8-9 m/min.

The rotation speed of the furnace roller is closely related to the thickness of the strip steel, the balance relationship between the bearing capacity of a product in a heated state and the bearing capacity of a motor needs to be considered comprehensively, the strip steel is abraded when the speed is too high, and even thin strip steel is worn through; when the speed is too low, the mass of the thick material is large, the torque of the motor is large, the motor is not beneficial to control, the heat productivity of the motor is large, and the service life of the motor is easily influenced. The embodiment of the invention finally determines the rotating speed of 10m/min through multiple production demonstrations, ensures that both strip steel products and motors are not influenced, and the furnace roller is uniformly heated at the rotating speed.

According to the requirements of the strip steel annealing process, the furnace temperatures of all sections of the annealing furnace in the annealing process are different, the annealing can be completed only when the strip steel sequentially passes through the low-temperature section, the high-temperature section and the low-temperature section, the furnace section information of the N groups of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace is obtained, and then the corresponding directions and speeds are controlled to rotate. For example: the odd-numbered groups of furnace rollers positioned at the high-temperature section rotate at 10m/min, the even-numbered groups of furnace rollers positioned at the high-temperature section rotate at-10 m/min, the odd-numbered groups of furnace rollers positioned at the low-temperature section rotate at 9m/min, and the even-numbered groups of furnace rollers positioned at the low-temperature section rotate at-9 m/min. Of course, the furnace section information can be determined according to the annealing process, and the rotating speed of the furnace roller is correspondingly determined. It will be appreciated that the low speed has two significant advantages:

1. on the premise of ensuring that the furnace roller is uniformly heated and does not generate bending deformation, the low rotating speed can reduce the abrasion of the furnace roller surface to the lower surface of the strip steel. In a high-temperature environment, if the furnace roller runs at a high speed, the strip steel can be worn through to form a through hole, and strip steel breakage is easy to cause.

2. The low speed can reduce the power consumption and the cost.

In an alternative embodiment, the number of furnace rolls in the odd and even sets of furnace rolls is two.

The transmission number address information, the rotating speed and the rotating direction information corresponding to each furnace roller are all arranged in the DB blocks, the furnace rollers can be controlled to rotate according to the set rotating speed and direction by correspondingly assigning values to the DB blocks during execution, the total number of the DB blocks influences the execution speed of the PLC, and the maximum storage capacity of each DB block is 20 pieces of furnace roller information. Therefore, the number of the furnace rollers is set to be two, so that the program structure is optimized and the program execution is simplified during the programming process, and the program processing speed is improved.

The technical scheme provided by the embodiment of the invention at least has the following advantages:

the control method is applied to the control of the annealing furnace, the odd-numbered groups of furnace rollers and the even-numbered groups of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace are controlled to rotate in opposite directions by receiving the abnormal stop signal of the annealing furnace, the furnace rollers are heated more uniformly in the continuous rotating process, the problem of deformation and blockage caused by nonuniform heating during stopping of the furnace rollers in the annealing furnace is avoided, the service life of the furnace rollers is prolonged, the steel accumulation in the annealing furnace is effectively controlled, and the wrinkles and even strip breakage of strip steel are reduced. The method has the advantages of good applicability and low cost, does not need hardware modification, and can be applied to updating and upgrading of the existing annealing furnace control method.

After the technical scheme of the embodiment of the invention is implemented in the annealing furnace, a certain furnace roller is selected for detection, please refer to fig. 3, fig. 3 is a furnace roller torque and rotation speed monitoring graph of the control method of the embodiment of the invention, the abscissa is time axis information, and the ordinate is rotation speed and torque, the furnace roller rotation speed and torque are not fluctuated and the surface furnace roller has no bending deformation through the information of fig. 3, so that the furnace roller bending deformation caused by abnormal shutdown of a furnace area under a high-temperature process is thoroughly solved.

Comparative example:

all furnace rollers in the comparative example adopt a positive and negative alternative swinging mode, swing for N seconds in the positive direction, stop for S seconds, swing for N seconds in the reverse direction, swing for N seconds in the positive direction again, and so on.

Referring to fig. 4, fig. 4 is a monitoring graph of furnace roller torque and rotation speed according to the control method of the comparative example of the present invention, the abscissa is time axis information, and the ordinate is rotation speed and torque. According to analysis, the influence of a heating mode in the annealing furnace on the comparative example is realized, the bottom of the furnace roller is heated, the furnace roller is in a static state for S seconds under the control of a swing mode, and the furnace roller can be bent and deformed during the static period of a high-temperature area in a short time.

Based on the same inventive concept as the method, the embodiment of the invention also provides a furnace roller control device, which is applied to control of an annealing furnace, wherein N groups of furnace rollers which are sequentially arranged are arranged in the annealing furnace, each group of furnace rollers comprises M furnace rollers, N is more than or equal to 2, M is less than or equal to 3, N and M are positive integers, as shown in FIG. 5, the control device comprises:

the judging module 101 is used for judging whether an abnormal shutdown signal of the annealing furnace is received or not;

and the control module 102 is used for controlling the odd-numbered groups of furnace rollers and the even-numbered groups of furnace rollers in the annealing furnace to rotate in opposite directions after receiving the abnormal stop signal of the annealing furnace.

Based on the same inventive concept as the method, an embodiment of the present invention further provides an electronic device, including:

a memory for storing a computer program;

a processor for executing the computer program to implement the steps of the method of any of the first aspects.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, embodiments of the present invention may be provided as a method, system, or computer program product. Accordingly, the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects. Furthermore, the present invention may take the form of a computer program product embodied on one or more computer-usable storage media (including, but not limited to, disk storage, CD-ROM, optical storage, and the like) having computer-usable program code embodied therein.

The present invention is described with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (modules, systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each flow and/or block of the flow diagrams and/or block diagrams, and combinations of flows and/or blocks in the flow diagrams and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, embedded computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

While preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described, additional variations and modifications in those embodiments may occur to those skilled in the art once they learn of the basic inventive concepts. Therefore, it is intended that the appended claims be interpreted as including preferred embodiments and all such alterations and modifications as fall within the scope of the invention.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made in the present invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Thus, if such modifications and variations of the present invention fall within the scope of the claims of the present invention and their equivalents, the present invention is also intended to include such modifications and variations.