The term steel mills refers to the global steel industry and in particular to the production facilities used to manufacture steel. The steel industry is huge and a truly global industry, as steel is the basis for many products that we use and need in our daily lives, be it bridges, pipelines for oil, gas or water, offshore constructions, wind turbine towers, etc. Without steel, we would not have the life we have now.
The millions of tons of steel produced today require very strong, durable and efficient equipment and a highly efficient production process. A modern steel mill uses continuous casting in which the liquid metal poured into the plant from the top flows downward by gravity and solidifying as it goes, passing through huge sets of rolls to finally ending up as heavy slabs of solid steel at the bottom.
These numerous rolls are the so-called ConCast Rolls or CCRs. One can imagine that the first CCRs that receive the liquid metal have to be very resistant to high temperature wear such as abrasion, corrosion, fatigue, metal to metal friction and from impact to thermal fatigue and must also have the high temperature resistance to support the weight of the steel.
Subsequent CCRs have different operating temperatures until the final CCRs at the bottom of the line. In terms of CCRs requirements the ConCast plant distinguishes four segments, each of which has specific requirements for wear resistance, mechanical properties at elevated temperatures, etc.
This means that this is a very interesting industry for us as a global supplier of welding consumables for SURFACEprotection, and in this case, for WEARprotection.
To meet the stringent requirements of high-quality steel grades, steel mills must have a highly effective production process. A very efficient solution to increase wear resistance and thus extend the lifetime of production equipment, is to apply WEARprotection, i.e. wear resistant or hardfacing weld overlays for maintenance, repair and renewal of the production equipment with hardfacing cored wires (with or without welding flux), strip claddings and stick electrodes.
From raw material handling and sintering to continuous casting and hot or cold rolling, all wear-prone areas can be protected by customized welding solutions. Our consumables have been developed in close co-operation with voestalpine and other steel mills around the world and cover all common welding processes used for the maintenance and repair of steel mill equipment.
As far as the amount of welding consumables used is concerned, CCRs make up the largest part, but beyond that, many other maintenance and repair activities take place in a steel mill, for which we also offer excellent solutions.
Wear leads to losses in production efficiency and to reduction of quality and lifecycle of machinery and tools, ultimately leading to increases in maintenance cost for all the production equipment.
UTP provides a total package of high quality WEARprotection welding consumables for maintenance and repair, which help to optimize the productivity of steel mills/the steel producing industry.
