Heavy plates for shipbuilding and the construction industry in South Korea. Hyundai Steel puts second heavy-plate mill from SMS Siemag into operation

Hyundai Steel has successfully put on stream a 4.3-meter heavy-plate mill supplied by SMS Siemag. Together with the 5-meter heavy-plate mill which has been producing since 2009, Hyundai Steel is now running two heavy-plate mills from SMS Siemag, Germany, at the Dangjin location in South Korea.

The 4.3-meter mill is designed for an annual production of 1.5 million tons of heavy plate in thicknesses from 6 to 200 millimeters. The main sales markets for the plates are to be the shipbuilding and the construction industries.

SMS Siemag supplied the mechanical equipment and the X-Pact® electrical and automation system. The main facilities of the heavy-plate mill are the descaler, the finishing stand with edger, the plate cooling system with pre-leveler, the hot-plate leveler, two cooling beds, the four-shear shearing line and the cold-plate leveler.

Special plant engineering highlights are the mill stand with the hydraulic adjustment system, the work-roll bending and the CVC^® plus systems, as well as the plate cooling system. The plate cooling system is designed purely as a spray-cooling system with high-pressure cooling at the front end and low-pressure cooling at the rear end. Thanks to this innovative cooling concept, Hyundai Steel is able to attain very high cooling rates and varied cooling patterns for a wide range of sophisticated steel grades. The plate is guided by pinch rolls during the cooling procedure, ensuring good plate flatness also at high cooling rates.

The 4.3-meter heavy-plate mill of Hyundai Steel operates with SMS Siemag’s X-Pact® level-1 and level-2 automation system. This system had been subjected to an integration test (Plug & Work) and pre-optimized before commissioning.

Based on SMS Group information