Objective The aim of the project is the introduction of a new process route in manufacturing ferritic steel strips rolled in the Hot Strip Mill of Acciai Speciali Terni (AST). By preventing natural cooling down from the coiling temperature (order of 800°C) and by keeping the coil in an ad hoc soaking furnace for a convenient time thereby conserving the enthalpy of the material, the steel is annealed to such an extent that subsequent annealing in traditional bell furnaces can be completely skipped, so that thermal energy related to the annealing process can be reduced by a factor of ten. Extensive metallurgical investigations have been carried out both at laboratory and at pilot plant scale jointly by AST and CSM. These R&D tests have proved that the process may be successful at level of one single coil. However, in order to transfer the conceptual principle into an industrial manufacturing practice while keeping acceptable quality, requires a demo plant and successful monitoring of a representative quantity of coils of good quality, acceptable to the market. This demonstration is the main objective of the present project.L%The basic technical design choices have been made and approved. The reporting period, following the February kick-off meetings, was mainly dedicated to detailed discussions on the new process capabilities with the technical managers of Terni Works : this has included potential use of the technique to several steel grades and technical-economical considerations about the production process and quality control of steel strips produced in the hot strip mill of AST.In the final arrangement the plant lay-out is capable of accomoding up to 11 cells arranged as adjacent pit furnaces. Up to five coils can be loaded with horizontal axis by means of a dedicated crane/loading machine, that picks up the coils after 90° rotation from the main delivery walking beam conveyor connected to the down-coiler of the Hot Strip Mill. Simulation of the temperature decay of the coil after down-coiling at an initial specified temperature is possible by means of an appropriate mathematical model. However, a more accurate model must be developed both for design purposes and for developing a process model control.Successful demonstration means that the new process step and the new required equipment is capable of consistent production of good quality steel with appreciable advantages of energy and operating costs savings and of reduced environmental burden. In other words the new proposed route, successfully tested "off line", must be implemented into "operating practice standards" concerning a significant amount of the ferritic steel produced by the hot strip mill. The coil must be unloaded at a suitable temperature from the outlet coiler (water cooling control) and loaded into a soaking furnace (probably a sort of pit furnace); the next coil is processed after a few minutes (order of 6-9') and must be inserted close to the preceding one within the short time available. This cycle goes on for a significant number of coils and then the furnace will be closed to prevent cooling while additional firing is provided to compensate for the heat losses of the outer steel layers. In practice fall of temperature of the central layers below a critical threshold must be prevented and annealing time of a few hours is required. Also cooling down must be controlled within suitable limits. The main engineering difficulty depends on lay-out constraints and the coil handling system : this plant requires an expensive investment, even if limited to a modular unit for reasons of cost. Automatic control and process control models will also play a significant role. Therefore a full range of specialised contributions is required for the project and this has resulted in the "mixture" of very large and very small entreprise partners in the project. Fields of science natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsmathematical model Programme(s) FP4-NNE-THERMIE C - Specific programme for research and technological development, including demonstration in the field of non-nuclear energy, 1994-1998 Topic(s) 6.2 - INDUSTRY Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme DEM - Demonstration contracts Coordinator Centro Sviluppo Materiali SpA EU contribution No data Address Via del Castel Romano 100/102 00100 Roma Italy See on map Total cost No data
