LONG PRODUCTS BULLETIN - SMS Meer GmbH

New order
About 1 million t of steel and 500,000 t of rebars
South Steel, Saudi Arabia:
Minimill order for rebar production
Last year SMS Concast and SMS Meer
were contracted by South Steel Company
of Saudi Arabia, which is part of
Pan Kingdom Invest, for the construction
of a minimill for rebars. The volume
of this steelworks order amounts to
over EUR 90 million. The new minimill
will be designed for an annual production
of 1 million t and is intended to
supply the downstream rebar rolling
mill with billets. The rolling mill will
have an annual production capacity of
500,000 t. Commissioning is scheduled
for the middle of 2011.
Electric steelworks for up to 100 % HBI
charging (hot briquetted iron). The meltshop
will feature a 140-t AC electric arc furnace
as meltdown unit. The melting rate
will be around 24 heats/day. The EAF will
be of the full-platform eccentric-bottomtapping
design. A highlight of this project
is that it will be SMS Concast’s first minimill
with an EAF and LF which can be operated
with up to 100 % HBI (hot briquetted iron)
charging, if required. Special focus will be
laid on the fine-tuning of the relationship
between the melting process and the HBI
rate with the objective in mind to achieve
a homogeneous process running at maximum
productivity.
Power will be supplied by a 150-MVA transformer
used in conjunction with the Consotech
equipment for chemical power
input. The melting unit will be equipped
with the latest generation of electrode con-
trol and process automation. This makes for
maximum flexibility in furnace operation,
providing the basis for the desired variable
composition of the charge while ensuring a
constant and reproducible melting process.
In the design, special emphasis is placed on
aspects critical to the continuous charging
of the furnace and the meltdown behavior,
namely material-flow management, EAF
technology and melting profiles.
Secondary metallurgy. Secondary-metallurgy
treatment will take place in a 140-t
ladle furnace supplied by an own 26-MVA
transformer.
The billet caster. The continuous casting
plant will feature five strands and a casting
radius of 9 m. It will produce billets in the
size range from 130 mm x 130 mm to 150
mm x 150 mm. The casting machine will be
equipped with Convex® mold technology,
mold stirrers and a hydraulic mold oscillation
system.
The rebar rolling mill. The rebar rolling
mill supplied by SMS Meer will include a
walking-beam furnace with several control
zones. The fuel/air ratios can be monitored
separately for each zone. This minimizes
fuel consumption and provides high flexi-
bility in furnace operation for all production
quantities. The fully automated rolling
mill will comprise 16 housingless stands in
horizontal and vertical arrangement, followed
by a six-stand Mono-Block finishing
stand for high-speed rolling of bars, as well
as a bar-quenching system. Downstream
of these units, a cooling bed and the finishing
and bundling facilities will be
arranged. The compact design of the “HL”
mill housings will ensure finished products
with close tolerances.
The High-Speed Delivery System will enhance
plant productivity, enabling the mill
to achieve a maximum finish-rolling speed
to the cooling bed of 41 m/s for 8- to 10mm-diameter
rebars. The overall plant
concept meets all requirements on efficiency,
flexibility and reduced maintenance.
At the same time it will provide
high operational reliability and high productivity.
SMS Meer’s scope of supply also
includes the level-2 automation system
and the complete electrical equipment.
Newsletter 1/2010
27