The first of two annealing lines, which SMS group (www.sms-group.com) supplied to Baotou (BISG Baotou Iron & Steel Group – Rare Earth Steel Plate Co. Ltd.), has been commissioned according to scheduled and has annealed the first coil as planned. Baotou had awarded SMS group the order for the supply of the two continuous annealing lines including six-high inline skin-passing mills in October 2013. The second line will be started up as scheduled in mid-2016. Both lines will be of almost identical design. Once on stream, the two annealing lines will be able to produce more than 1.5 million tons of refined cold strip per year. The majority of the material, including grades for exposed car body parts as well as high-strength grades such as DP and TRIP with tensile strengths of up to 980 MPa, will be used in the automotive industry. The two lines will form an integral part of the new cold rolling mill No. 2, which Baotou is building in Inner Mongolia. The recent commissioning of the first annealing line is an important milestone of the overall project.
The new line can handle strip widths between 830 and 1,580 millimeters and strip thicknesses from 0.25 to 2.5 millimeters. The maximum process speed amounts to 400 m/min, the annual capacity will be 630,000 tons. In addition to the design of the mechanical equipment and the manufacture of various core components, the SMS group’s supply package also included the supervision of part of the local manufacturing scope and of equipment installation and commissioning. EMG Automation supplied the complete strip control system and the quality assurance systems SORM for optical roughness measurement and IMPOC for non-contact magnetic tensile strength and yield point measurement.
The inline six-high skinpassing mill featuring CVC® plus technology ensures compliance with the contractual strip flatness requirements. The Extended Bending System (EBS) provides for the targeted skin-passing of soft IF steels even at low rolling forces.