LONG PRODUCTS BULLETIN - SMS Meer GmbH

Piya Chairat, Plant Manager of Siam
Yamato and his colleagues, remain convinced
of the decision in favor of SMS:
”With the minimill for medium sections
from SMS at the Map Tha Put location
we have bought the right equipment,”
said the manager of the Thai/Japanese
steel enterprise. ”My customers believe
in technology from SMS and we had to
invest significantly less money than for
a conventional plant. In this way, we are
able to produce at lower cost and even
the ecological values are excellent.”
Since several months, this perfectly producing
mill has been in operation.
40-year-old idea more
relevant than ever
”Minimill” – this 40-year-old idea is today
more relevant than ever. Germany’s Willy
Korff had designed the mill in the sixties.
In 1968, he inaugurated his steel plant in
Kehl, Baden, Germany, the first of its kind
with electric arc furnaces and an associated
rolling mill for the production of rebars
from SMS, at that time worldwide an
absolute novelty.
The idea was revolutionary. From then on,
steel could no longer be only produced
where the coal was located but at any location.
The Kehl port area with easy access
to waterway, rail and highway was ideal to
deliver scrap as starting material.
The finishing train.
Just one year later, nearly 149,000 t of steel
were produced in Kehl. Meanwhile, annual
production is more than 2.2 million t which
corresponds to 23,500 charges per year. In
the early years, the smelting staff required
a few hours for a charge but today the time
required for loading scrap up to liquid
steel takes just 38 minutes.
Good for ecology
and “green“ steel
In the age of ecology and “green“ steel,
Korff’s idea which was realized by applying
SMS technology has considerably regained
attraction. Steel production and
further processing in an integrated factory
saves energy. At the same time, the customers
benefit from highly flexible SMS
plants which can be revamped within very
short periods of time and thus the demand
is correspondingly high.
Successful minimill team
SMS has reacted to the market demands
with a comprehensive team. Under the direction
of Paolo Cancian from SMS Meer,
Italy, colleagues from all over the world
closely cooperate with each other, whether
they are from the Business Area SMS Meer
or from SMS Concast.
The success justifies the concept: large and
significant reference plants such as those
at Siam Yamato (medium sections), Tung
Ho in Thailand (bar mill) or a combined
plant from SSM in Košice are already running
at full speed just like a mill in the USA.
With a planned works for heavy beams in
Sulb, Bahrain, another milestone will be
added soon and also in Saudi Arabia a mill
is under construction.
Newsletter 2/2010
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