Product category:
Production Services
News Release from: Metalock Engineering | Subject: Aceralia (Aviles) steel company
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 23 May 2002
Machining aids steel production
In-situ machining as part of a plant refurbishment has helped a Spanish steel producer to substantially improve product quality and thickness tolerance.
Fitting new hydraulic screwdown capsules to the four stands of a tandem intermediate/finishing mill at Aceralia (Aviles) steel company, Asturius, Spain has enabled the steel producer to substantially improve product quality and thickness tolerance So that the new capsules could be fitted, Metalock Engineering remachined eight bores on the four stands in-situ using four of its purpose-designed boring machines to ensure the work was completed as quickly as possible
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 27 Feb 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
In-situ machining finished ahead of schedule
Metalock Industrial Services was congratulated by the customer on its efficient and professional work in preparation for a major mill upgrade at Alcan Rolled Products, and for finishing 24 hours early
Girth ring repair for pulverised fuel mill
Metalock Industrial Services has saved Powergen's Cottam Power Station a substantial amount of expenditure by repairing a 4.45m diameter girth ring on a pulverised fuel mill.
Based in Coventry, with facilities in strategic locations throughout the UK, Metalock was selected to carry out the reboring work by VAI Cosim following good reports on earlier work from its French sister company VAI Clecim and the VAI Group itself.
Aceralia, which produces over a million tonnes of steel product annually, needed to get the machining work done as quickly as possible so that the new load cells could be fitted and the mill returned to operation with minimum downtime.
Using four boring machines, Metalock was able to complete the machining task in 9 days, working 24 hours a day with a 14-man team.
In all over 11 tonnes of metal was removed.
The actual work involved enlarging the eight bores on the four Blaw-Knox mill housings to accept the new capsules from 711.5 to 950mm diameter to a depth of 565mm from the previous 558mm finishing with a 50mm radius at the end of each bore.
Special single-point turning devices were manufactured to generate the radius and produce the required surface finish.
The tandem mill at Aceralia can be used as an intermediate mill or a finishing mill depending upon production schedules.
As an intermediate it would reduce slabs down prior to tempering.
As a finishing mill strip product passes through to a tinning line and be capable of producing strip up to 1524mm wide good quality control and thickness tolerance over the full width is essential.
The new screwdown system is enabling these parameters to be more constantly achieved than previously.
As screwdown pressure has now been increased with the new equipment Aceralia are planning to produce harder steels on this mill in due course.
A spokesperson for VAI Cosim told Metalock that they were very impressed by the professionalism and dedication of the team to the job in hand.
The final result was better than expected and the work was carried out well within budget and to time.
• Metalock Engineering: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Engineeringtalk email newsletter
• Engineeringtalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
