Metals Technologies (MT), a division of the Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services (Siemens I&S) Group, has received orders from two Chinese steel producers to supply automation systems for their new hot strip mills. The two orders in question mean that Siemens has now received a total of five orders for automation solutions for Chinese hot rolling mills in the current fiscal year.
The basic and process automation systems, as well as the visualization systems, to be supplied by Siemens in the two latest orders will be applied in operations from the furnace exit side for the roughing and finishing mills, to the laminar-flow-cooling sections and up to the coilers, including the coil conveyors. Of the two new rolling mills which are scheduled to start operating as early as the middle and the end of 2008, one plant will also be supplied with Siemens drive systems for the motors of the rolling stands.
One of the two steel producers in question, the Xin Yu Iron and Steel Group in Jiangxi Province, operates a complex including wire rod mills, a beam rolling mill and plate rolling mills. The new hot rolling mill was designed to produce high-quality hot rolled strip with widths of 750 to 1,430 mm and thicknesses of 1.2 to 16 mm. An annual total of three million metric tons of hot strip will be produced, including carbon steel, HSLA steel, silicon steel and modern multiphase steel products.
The other steel producer, located on the Chinese east coast, is now building a hot-strip mill which, in its first phase, is to supply 2.5 million metric tons of wide hot strip per year and, in its final stage, five million metric tons per year. The plant has been designed for hot strip with widths of between 1,200 and 2,000 mm and thicknesses of 1.5 to 25.4 mm. The maximum weight of each coil is 43 metric tons with coil diameters of 1,000 to 2,500 mm. The product spectrum ranges from simple carbon steel and low-alloy steels to high-quality carbon steels. It also includes application steels for bridges, pipes, pressure vessels, automotive manufacturing, shipbuilding and welding steel grades. Siemens will also supply the Sinamics SM 150-fed main drives for this mill.
Siemens is also responsible for supervising the installation of the supplied systems, as well as for their commissioning. The mechanical equipment of the hot rolling mills will be provided by Chinese companies.