STEEL & METALLURGY :: Abstract for December 2009 Issue

View of December' 2009 Issue
============================

Jubilee Issue of metals & mining Coming Up Soon
Nirmalya Mukherjee, Editor, Steel & Metallurgy

ABSTRACT
The market for fully processed non grain-oriented (NGO) silicon steel requires superior coating control with a broad range of thicknesses and coating products. Unfortunately the existing Annealing & Coating Lines installed in the past can not always meet the highest quality demands due to old design coating section.
The chemical coater technology instead ensures best results and is widely used also in the NGO steel production. It can replace conveniently old design coating equipment with short down time and limited investment.
This paper highlights Tenova Strip Processing1 innovative coating section for NGO steel and the advantages of replacing old design sections.
Non grain-oriented silicon steel is used in several applications by many industries from the automotive and appliances to the infrastructure.
Industry’s demand for electric insulation coated sheet with broader ranges of thicknesses make the coating process a key technological factor for growing in a competitive market. For instance markets are demanding coating thicknesses as low as 0.5 ìm and up to 8 ìm.
Rising standards and expectations on quality, but also on material savings and environmental compatibility have given the producers great responsibility.

Expanded Portfolio of Products for Surface Inspection Significantly Benefits the Steel Manufacturing Industry Unique Innovations Make the Inspection of Slabs and Thick Plates Possible
By Our News Bureau

ABSTRACT
ISRA PARSYTEC, the world’s leading supplier of surface inspection systems for web products, introduces a whole new dimension in efficient flat steel production: The latest innovations now make the inspection of slabs and thick plates possible. By being able to inspect slabs, steel manufacturers can discover defects relevant to production at a very early stage and thus save material and time.
Today, manufactures of high-quality steels are able to use surface inspection systems in most processing steps of flat steel production, such as hot rolling, pickling, cold rolling, galvanizing, etc. to automatically inspect intermediate and end products for defects. However, for the upstream processes and thus for slabs, up until now they have not had the technical capabilities to do so.

Implementation of Knowledge Management System in R & D Units
By S. Selvi, Shyamalesh Khan, Manju Shree, NNJ Hemrom and A K Paul R&D Center for Iron and Steel, SAIL, Ranchi

ABSTRACT
Today knowledge has become a crucial asset. Knowledge Management is a tool that nurtures and helps such assets to grow. It helps in effective utilisation of intellectual capital and enhancement of the organization’s performance. It involves blending the company’s internal & external information and transforms it into actionable knowledge. Organizations are turning to knowledge management initiatives and technologies to leverage their knowledge resources. It is important that everyone focuses on ownership of intellectual capital and utilize them efficiently for development as well as competitive edge with the help of appropriate tool. A Knowledge Management System (KMS) based on the state-of-the-art Information Technology (IT) makes that possible. Many experts believe that in future the main source of competitive advantage will be organization’s ability to leverage corporate knowledge, its distribution and to learn faster than others.
Knowledge Management is an integrated systematic approach to identify, manage and share organization’s information assets available in databases, documents, policies, and procedures, as well as unarticulated expertise and experience held by individual workers. The idea behind KM is to capture not only explicit factual information but also the tacit information and knowledge that exist in an organization. The objective is to achieve the mission of the organization by sharing all types of knowledge among the employees of the organization. There are also lots of challenges as experts retire or leave organizations. Importance of knowledge database to capture expertise available for future reference and competitive edge has been felt by all.
The paper is based on work of design and development of software “Information Portal at RDCIS”, developed for RDCIS – Research and Development centre of for Iron and Steel, SAIL. Today, knowledge is the strategic key resource. This paper is based on the challenges faced in the implementation of Knowledge Management system at RDCIS, SAIL. This paper focuses on the different forms of knowledge’s available in R&D Units, features, access mechanism, security mechanism, its implementation in different departments, and the platform used for implementing KMS.

Interview of Mr. Devendra Kumar Ojha, Managing Director, Global Coke Limited
By "Global Coke Limited - Adding Value to nature’s wealth"

Rolling mill technology for steel long products
By our News Desk

ABSTRACT
The main focus of this paper is to present specific solutions for the rolling of long products of special and carbon steel grades. Innovative layouts have been developed for flexible rolling operation, reduced investment and operation costs, and high quality products. These flexible rolling mills are designed for prompt adaptation to the variety of the rolled products achieving a broad product range at highest operational product yields. The precision rolling system, which is a solution for rolling extremely precise product dimensions, will be described. The system can be installed in any conventional bar mill. This newly developed sizing system uses only six entry dimensions for the infinite production of ultra precise round bars. The flat rolling block is a perfect instrument to produce flat bars economically in very small lot sizes.

Superior Strip Profile and Flatness in Hot-Strip-Mills with Advanced Technology Packages —Emphasizing “SmartCrown” Technology—
By our News Desk

ABSTRACT
Considerably improved strip profile and flatness in hot-strip mills can be achieved through the installation of new technology packages from VAI. These include the innovative SmartCrown roll contour, the L-type bending and shifting block for reduced roll wear, an online roll-stack deflection model, a unique mill stand design for reduced nip, an optimized work-roll shifting strategy, dynamic work-roll cooling and a highly efficient profile and flatness-control model. Key targets of these solution packages are to achieve a wide control range, easy-to-implement control characteristics, a flexible pass-schedule design, the suppression of all types of strip buckles and one single roll grind per mill stand.
Several of these technology packages, especially the control models, are currently being installed in the hot-strip mill of voestalpine Stahl, Linz/Austria. The clear target here is to improve the profile and flatness performance of the rolled strip by replacing the existing control system originally installed in 1995. The core of the new system is a highly accurate, online, 3D finite-element roll-stack deflection model developed by VAI, which is capable of executing calculations in 50 ms. In addition to higher profile and flatness accuracy, the new control system promotes greater flexibility to utilize the profile and flatness actuators of the mill, improves the interstand flatness results and reduces degree of strip-shape changes per stand to assure safe rolling conditions.