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ThyssenKrupp Steel Restarts Flexible Hot-Dip Coating Line at Finnentrop

04/11/2008 - ThyssenKrupp Steel has completed its modernization and restarted Hot-Dip Coating Line No. 3 at the company’s Finnentrop facility, which now features a new interchangeable pot system that accommodates both zinc and aluminum coating.

ThyssenKrupp Steel has completed its modernization and restarted Hot-Dip Coating Line No. 3 at the company’s Finnentrop facility.
 
The fully overhauled and modernized hot-dip coating line went back into operation with extensively modernized entry and galvanizing sections and a new interchangeable pot system that makes the line capable of coating strip with zinc or with aluminum. In the area where the zinc pot was previously situated, a new pit was built that holds both a zinc and an aluminum pot. The zinc and aluminum pots, which are made of ceramic material, can hold 160 tonnes of zinc and 60 tonnes of aluminum. The pots move on tracks that help to facilitate production switches.
 
At the heart of the 12-million-euro investment is a 50-meter-tall cooling tower colored in different shades of blue. The new, taller tower houses a longer cooling section to accommodate the higher melting point of aluminum. Arriving at a temperature of around 680°C, the strip is cooled with up to a million cubic meters of air per hour. Although the new landmark in Finnentrop is taller and wider than the previous cooling tower, better insulation and modern technology helps to make the cooling process quieter for nearby residents.

Hot-Dip Coating Line No. 3 was commissioned on March 14 and is scheduled to produce its first hot-dip aluminized strip at the end of April. The main customer for this innovative product is the auto industry, which uses it to make high-value safety components. 100,000 tonnes and more of this product will be manufactured in Finnentrop in the future. The overall capacity of the plant is around 450,000 tonnes of coated steel strip per year.

Construction work lasted approximately five months.