ABB Automation has achieved noteworthy cost-savings at Iscor Long Steel Products (LST), based in Vereeniging, where the company has redesigned and upgraded the control system, the lagging of the steam lines and the analyser system.
At the LST plant there is a hot working area for the production of seamless tubes from billets. Solid round bars of 140 and 185 mm diameter are cut to precise lengths, different grades of steel. These are determined by the desired finished product's dimensions and the quality requirements.
The cut bars or billets are then soaked in a rotary heat furnace after which they are conveyed to the cone type-piercing mill where they are rolled to form a shell. The shells are rolled in a mandrel mill and a stretch-reducing mill to obtain the desired dimensions. The plugs in the cone type piercing mill are thermochemically annealed to form an oxide coat with special properties for protection and a simultaneous tempering of the material. Plugs are charged into an annealing container in the heat treatment furnace.
Before the upgrade, worn piercer plugs were responsible for heavy production losses. ABB found that poor adhesion of the scale layer, incorrect thickness of the scale layer and variable hardness of base material due to heating and cooling time variances were the main source of the problem. The upgrade of the furnace gas control system has led to the average plug life increasing by 70%. The customer later informed us that this has led to a substantial cost-saving resulting in vastly improved production uptime. The project was completed in a record time of six weeks.
Dries Griessel, Product Specialist, ABB Automation says: "At ABB we strive to help our customers succeed and seek to add value to their businesses. Much of the added value we get from technology comes from infusing new knowledge into traditional products, giving more functionality and higher efficiencies, thus adding manageability to functionality and predictability to reliability." Dries will address any queries regarding this article.
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