Aperam orders annealing and pickling line for stainless steel cold strip from SMS group Aperam Stainless Belgium has contracted SMS group (www.sms-group.com) to supply an annealing and pickling line for stainless steel cold strip to its Genk plant in Belgium.
Production start is scheduled for 2020. With this investment in state-of-the-art and future-oriented plant technology, Aperam will enlarge its product range by material grades for the most demanding applications and improve lead time and flexibility to meet the market demand. It will further increase efficiency and cost competitiveness of its plants and continuously enhance the impacts on health, safety and environment.
The line will stand out due to its high degree of automation and resource-saving processes and will be equipped, in addition to a horizontal Drever annealing furnace and a multi-stage pickling section, with a four-high skin-pass mill stand and a side trimmer.
The new annealing and pickling line will be the fourth one SMS group is going to install at Aperam’s Genk site. Besides mechanical equipment, process technology, furnace technology, electrical and automation systems, the scope of supply will also include technical support during installation and commissioning. The line will process both austenitic and ferritic grades.
SMS group is a group of companies internationally active in plant construction and mechanical engineering for the steel and nonferrous metals industry. It has some 14,000 employees who generate worldwide sales of about EUR 3 billion. The sole owner of the holding company SMS GmbH is the Familie Weiss Foundation.
The powerful furnace from Drever International will be designed for the resource-saving and efficient processing of cold strip. The pickling section will allow for a good pickling result at low consumptions and high speeds and include electrolytic sections, a turbulence pickling section as well as a rinsing area with oscillating brushes.