Steel deal for Siemens

The

(I&S) has received an order from

,

, to supply the electrical equipment for a new 5m plate mill.

The order, worth around €25 million, includes the main drives, basic and process automation, and the entire material tracking system. Start-up is scheduled for August 2006.

The state-owned Angang Group is one of the largest producers of iron and steel in China. The company operates a production complex in Anshan, Liaoning province, with an annual capacity of around ten million tons of pig iron and crude steel.

With the new plate mill, designed for an annual production capacity of approximately 1.4 million tons, Angang aims to further improve its position as a supplier for ship-building, gas and oil pipelines, pressurised containers and steel structures. The plant will produce plates with a thickness of between five and 150 millimetres and a width of up to 4800 millimetres.

The new plate mill includes a heating furnace, a plate rolling stand, a rapid cooling facility and a hot plate leveller. The adjacent finishing shop encompasses two cooling tables, an inspection line and a shearing line. SMS Demag and other Chinese companies will supply the mechanical equipment.

Siemens is supplying the automation system and the drives, including a twin drive with a rated output of two times ten megawatts and a maximum torque of two times 4775 kilonewtons at 250 per cent overload. The cylindrical-rotor synchronous motors to be used are said to be especially suitable for the rough operating conditions in a plate mill.

The automation system includes operator control and visualisation equipment. All the process parameters will reportedly be kept within close tolerance limits by a combination of analytical process models and technological controls. Special models will be provided for functions such as rectangular shape control, thermo-mechanical rolling and the production of metal plates of variable thickness as well as for optimisation of rolling sequence control and plate cutting.

Siemens is also carrying out the engineering of the electrical equipment for the whole rolling mill and finishing facility. This includes integration of automation software packages for the heating furnace, the rapid cooling and the levelling machines. In addition, Siemens will also be responsible for monitoring installation of the equipment, commissioning and customer training.