May 18 2010
At the end of April, Siemens VAI Metals Technologies successfully started up the 4.3 meter plate mill for Jinan Iron & Steel (Group) Co., Ltd.
The first plate is rolled on the finishing mill supplied by Siemens in the 4.3 meter plate mill at Jinan Iron & Steel´s Jigang Works.
The plant will enable the Chinese steelmaker to produce up to 1.8 million tonnes of plate every year at its Jigang Works, and thus increase its total annual capacity to over five million tonnes.
Siemens handled the engineering work and supplied the mechanical equipment and automation solutions for the new mill.
The plate mill in Jigang comprises three heating furnaces, a two-stand rolling line, cooling beds, a shearing line, and a finishing shop. Siemens provided the mechanical equipment for the finishing stand, which is equipped with SmartCrown technology, the Mulpic intensive cooling system with ACDQ (accelerated cooling / direct quenching), a hot plate leveler, a double side trimmer and a cold plate leveler. The remaining mechanical components were provided by Jinan Iron & Steel.
Siemens' scope of supply also included all the process models for the heating furnaces and the rolling line, the entire automation and instrumentation equipment, as well as a system for tracking material from insertion into the furnace to transfer of the ready-to-ship plates to the dispatch center. Sinamics SM150 voltage-source DC link converters supply the three-phase synchronous motors which power the main drives on the roughing and finishing stands. The entire solution is based on the integrated Siroll PM concept for plate rolling mills. The new line can roll products ranging from 6 mm to 120 mm thick and from 1,500 mm to 4,100 mm wide. The maximum plate weight is approximately 22 tonnes. Such plates are used, for example, in shipbuilding and in the oil and gas industries.
By increasing its production capacity, Jinan Iron & Steel will become one of the largest heavy-plate producers in China. The company awarded Siemens the order for the new rolling mill, in the medium double-digit million euro range, at the beginning of 2008. The project helps Siemens to further expand its market position as a supplier of complete mechanical, electrical and automation solutions for plate mills.