Alton Steel Inc.
Thursday, May 7, 2009 • 7:30 a.m.
Cost: US$50/person - (Sold Out)

Alton Steel’s facility is located on a single 400-acre site in Alton, Ill., approximately 25 miles northeast of St. Louis, Mo. The facility has 335 employees. The main production units are a meltshop and a bar mill. The meltshop includes two 225-ton electric arc furnaces, of which only one is currently in use. It also has a fully equipped ladle metallurgy furnace with reheat and alloying capabilities used to feed its 6-strand continuous caster. Alton’s meltshop is capable of producing 700,000 tons of steel annually. The company uses about half of its current production as feedstock for its 14-inch bar mill, which can annually process approximately 400,000 tons into SBQ and MBQ bar product. The other half of its semi-finished steel is sold to third-party processors.

Alton Steel’s products take the form of both semi-finished slabs and billets, as well as precise cut-to-length hot rolled bars. The mill offers a full range of custom carbon (10xx) and alloy steels (4xxx, 5xxx and 8xxx series). The facility also offers free machining steels in the resulfurized 11xx series, as well as the popular resulfurized and rephosphorized 1215 grade. These steel grade offerings are further complimented by a full range of less complex chemistries that support MBQ market applications.

The meltshop currently produces over 400,000 tons of 7-inch x 7-inch semi-finished billets, as well as 9.25-inch x 4-inch and 12.5-inch x 4-inch slab product. The 7-inch product represents the bulk of the tonnage and is used both at the bar mill as well as sold commercially. The entire slab production is sold commercially. All semi-finished product can be cut from 16 to 40 feet in length, depending on customer and yield considerations.

Rolling over 250,000 tons per year, the bar mill produces both SBQ and MBQ products ranging in size from 0.910-inch to 3.500-inch diameter. All bars are rolled from a 7-inch x 7-inch, 5,000-pound billet. The walking beam reheat furnace has a nominal operating capacity of 80 tons per hour. The rolling mill is a 17-stand horizontal-vertical mill with two repeaters. A notch-type cooling bed feeds two cold shears and bundling stations, one for small product up to 2 inches in diameter, the other for larger rounds over 2 inches in diameter. Sheared lengths can vary from 18 to 60 feet, depending on customer requirements.

The site has excellent rail access with the Norfolk Southern’s local switching yard to the west of the facility and the Union Pacific yard directly to the east of the plant. Shipments by truck are facilitated by the mill’s close proximity to major cross-country highways. Most major steel consuming manufacturing markets are within 12 hours of the facility.

ABB Inc
Transformer Remanufacturing and Engineering Services (TRES)
Thursday, May 7, 2009 • 7:30 a.m.
Cost: US$50/person - (Tour is limited)

ABB Transformer Remanufacturing and Engineering Services (TRES) understands that both utility and industrial companies strive to maintain the reliability of their transformers, but that failures do occur. Reducing system downtime becomes a critical factor. ABB’s transformer repair operation in St. Louis, Missouri is equipped with the personnel, resources, and equipment to promptly get your unit back in service. The process starts with an assessment of the situation before the failed unit even leaves the site. As the owner of the most extensive OEM database in the transformer industry, ABB is capable of pulling the original design drawings on approximately 70% of the installed base in North America. Current and legacy manufacturers include:

• ABB
• Asea
• BBC
• General Electric
• Maloney
• National Industri
• Westinghouse

This means that cycle times can be reduced since engineering and fabrication of parts can begin before the unit physically arrives at the repair facility. New windings and components can be ready for installation shortly after the unit has been dismantled. Complete in-house diagnostics and testing further ensure that remanufactured units leave ready for installation. With top quality work backed by comprehensive OEM technology, years of repair experience, and the largest transformer design database in the world, ABB offers superior reliability, resulting in less time, money, and personnel that companies have to devote to maintenance.