STEEL & METALLURGY :: Abstract for March 2010 Issue

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Advanced Coating Technology for Silicon Steel
By Lorenzo Bonagiunti, Proposal Manager at Tenova Strip Processing, Milan (Italy)

ABSTRACT
Tenova’s chemical coater technology can replace conventional coating sections with minimal disruption and ensures the best results in critical coating operations such as varnishing non-grain orientated electrical steels for electrical insulation where coating thickness control is paramount.
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 cannot always meet the highest quality demands due to the older design of the coating section.
Tenova’s chemical coater technology instead ensures the best results and is widely used in coating lines including NGO steel production. It can be installed to replace conventional coating equipment with only a short down time and at a modest investment.
This paper describes the Tenova Strip Processing innovative coating section for NGO steel and the advantages of this replacing older technology.
Non grain-oriented silicon steel is used for motors and transformers by many industries from the automotive and appliances industries to infrastructure. Industry’s demand for this electrically insulated coated sheet with a broad range of thicknesses makes the coating process a key factor for growth in a competitive market. For instance markets are demanding coating thicknesses of as little as 0.5ěm and up to 8ěm.

Automation in Steelmaking with respect to continuous caster to achieve high quality & higher productivity
By C H Prasad Rao & & SS Dutta, SAIL/CET Ranchi

ABSTRACT
Efficient use of energy and production of high quality steel products are the two important requirements of any integrated Steel Plant. It is critical for a Slab caster shop to know exactly the slab quality casted. After a slab is cast, its quality is assessed and segregated for closer inspection and conditioning before further processing. But unfortunately, conventional quality assessment processes being done off-line, slabs would cool down resulting in huge energy losses. The Computer Aided Quality Assessment (CAQA) system is a tool to achieve online quality monitoring and assessment. It involves two level of state of art based Automation Systems. The paper describes the role of Automation systems for improvement in quality and productivity in continuous caster.

Automation Technologies for Better Quality Steel
By Ananya Mukhopadhyay, Danieli Automation, Via Stringher, ITALY

ABSTRACT
In last decade, the share of world steel production is increased geographically mainly in Asia, and partly in the CIS. In spite of ongoing recession and slump of world crude steel production by 8 percent in 2009 compared to the previous year’s 1,304 Mt, production of China grew by 13.5 percent to 567.8 Mt, and that of India by 2.8 percent to 56.6 Mt. Infrastructure development and rise in industrial production are responsible for this growth. For India, to achieve the economic growth target (real GDP) of 7.75 percent in this fiscal year, as set by the finance ministry, there will be a lot of investments in the core sectors. The steel producers here and elsewhere around the world are demanding technologies that not only help them reduce production cost, but also enable to produce superior products of minimum variability in bulk properties, and with added functionalities such as fire-resistance, seismic resistance etc. Due to requirement of sustainable development, such higher quality products should be produced following better operating practices of minimum downgrading, reduced yield-loss, and more economic use of ferroalloys. To address this trend, Danieli Automation has developed technologies that can significantly meet today’s challenges for a wide range of steel customers – long and flat. While DANIELI’s Coil Quality Estimator (DANIELI - CQETM) and Plate Quality Monitor (DANIELI - PQMTM) are aimed towards production of better quality strips, and plates respectively, its Advanced Quenched and Tempered Bar technology (DANIELI – QTB PLUSTM) is meant for wires, plain and re-bars. All these automation technologies predict and control mechanical properties in real time during actual plant operations. Proper control at processing stage itself increases operational flexibility and reduces chances of manufacturing off-target products, and thereby reduces downgrading and yield-loss. This also helps reducing testing samples and manpower, lowering inventory cost, and improving customer delivery performance. The systems can optimize processes for better utilization of resources - expensive ferroalloys, water, furnace fuel, and electricity through proper designing of production processes for target product mix. These technologies have been implemented in Europe and around the world. Last year the CQE has been implemented in the United Metallurgical Company (OMK), Vyksa, Russia, while QTB-PLUS in two of Riva Acciaio’s European mills – one in Verona, Italy, and another in Seville, Spain. The PQM is scheduled to be implemented in Iran this year. The performance of the systems has been found to be excellent. This paper here provides with the description, performance, and our implementation experience of these systems.

Innovative concepts in Steelmaking Automation:
The 3Qs -Quality, Quantity and Quickness - and the iStand -Virtual Reality for Training and Commissioning
By Luigi Morsut & Raffaele Treu, Danieli Automation

ABSTRACT
DANIELI AUTOMATION, a company within the DANIELI GROUP with a leading position world-wide in the supply of automation for steelmaking, has recently developed two new concepts to support the steelmaking industry.
The first concept, the 3Qs, is a complete suite of functionalities covering all the steelmaking processes – from raw materials handling to the shipping of finished products - comprehensively achieving the targets of Quality, Quantity and Quickness.
The paper describes how the most recent technologies, such as robots, laser off-gas analyzers, digital image recognition, etc. together with state-of-art software applications are applied to industrial environments to achieve the 3Qs concept.
The second concept, the iStand – Intelligent Testing and Training Station, is the result of a Research and Development project developed by DANIELI AUTOMATION which reproduces the functionality of industrial steelmaking equipment by using virtual reality to simulate the plant in all its details and operations. The iStand operates in real-time and is able to replicate various plant areas, from primary and secondary metallurgy stations, to continuous casting, rolling mill and finishing areas through a wide set of software applications for plant simulation.
This paper describes how the iStand was developed and the first results that have been achieved with the intensive use of the iStand during the testing and training phases prior to commissioning a plant.