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Stefana Starts up New SMS Meer Bar Rolling Mill
08/04/2008 - Stefana SpA starts up a new 120 tonne/hour bar mill supplied by SMS Meer for the production of straight bars and spools.
Stefana SpA, a manufacturer of bars and wire rod located in Ospitaletto, Italy, recently started up a new 120 tonne/hour bar mill (140 tonne/hour with hot charge). The objective of the project—awarded to SMS Meer in 2005 and referred to as “Dream Steel”—was to significantly boost production of straight bars and spools.
With its annual capacity of 700,000 tonnes, the new plant is among the highest-productivity rolling mills in southern Europe. The bar mill’s product mix includes rebars and plain rounds with diameters from 8 to 16 mm produced with the two-slit rolling method, and with diameters from 18 to 40 mm produced in a single line.
SMS Meer’s scope of supply included a walking-hearth furnace, the rolling line, finishing section and two VCC® Vertical Compact Coiling lines.
The walking-hearth furnace is designed for heating 160 x 160 mm square billets with lengths of 16 meters, which ranks it among the world’s largest for reheating of starting material for long-product rolling mills. A connection to the existing caster allows the billets to be charged either hot or cold. The furnace includes all necessary equipment for charging and discharging.
The rolling mill comprises 16 housingless stands consisting of six roughing mill stands arranged in horizontal and vertical configuration, and ten intermediate/finishing stands arranged in horizontal, vertical and convertible configuration. The scope of supply also included two finishing blocks each with six passes, three cooling sections for rebar quenching and self-tempering from rolling heat, two cooling bed shears and the patented HSD® High-Speed Delivery system. The HSD system with four rotating channels allows high-speed rolling using the two-slit method in order to permit very high production rates with the smallest bar sizes.
When planning the layout of the mill, space was allowed for the future installation of a billet welder for endless rolling operation and a possible expansion for the production of wire rod.
The finishing area consists of a 90-meter-long cooling bed, transport facilities, a cold shear, bundling equipment, four automatic tying machines with automatic labeling device, bundle transport ways and all the necessary utilities. All products are delivered onto the cooling bed with a final speed of up to 40 meters/second using the HSD system. The entire mill has been designed and equipped to allow a speed increase of up to 50 meters/second in the future.
Rebars with diameters from 8 to 16 mm are coiled into spools on the two vertical compact coiler (VCC) lines at a speed of 35 meters/second. The lines include cooling boxes, shears, spooling equipment, a spool manipulator, two strapping machines, transport facilities and a weighing station. When charging 16-meter-long square billets, the spools have weights up to 3.2 tonnes with a diameter and a height of 700 mm.
SMS Meer acted as system integrator, supplying all the electrical and electronic equipment, controls and software for the mill automation. Erection and supervision of commissioning of the mill as well as training of the customer’s personnel were also part of the company’s scope of supplies and services.
SMS group is, under the holding SMS GmbH, a group of companies internationally active in plant construction and mechanical engineering for the steel and nonferrous metals industry. It consists of the two Business Areas SMS Demag and SMS Meer, which jointly form SMS metallurgy. In 2007, some 8,000 employees worldwide generated a turnover of about EUR 3.0 billion.
