STEEL + TECHNOLOGY 04/2019 EXTRACT

54 | STEEL TECHNOLOGY
Steelmaking
Integrated EAF safety concept of Badische
group
For safe EAF operation, the first focus has to be put on the process itself. The right set-up of the EAF is a main
precondition for safe operation. Secondly, operational reliability with minimized delay rates need to be achieved.
The third level of safety at the EAF can be achieved by implementing special supplementary safety equipment.
Such special safety equipment concerns the temperature and sampling taking, as well as the insight shell
inspection by cameras. The automation of the tapping-process, either spout- or EBT-system, are of high interest
for automation to gain higher working safety levels.
Badische Stahlwerke GmbH (BSW)
was established in 1968 by Willy
Korf. Today BSW, part of the
Badische group, is the biggest German
supplier for the production of reinforcing
steel products. The core competence
of Badische group is servicing
the European civil construction industry
by producing every steel product that
goes into concrete. The group is family-owned
and divided in three lines of
business: the steel production with
BSW as core company, the wire processing
branch for manufacturing and
distribution of wire products, and – last
but not least – the technology and consulting
branch, which Badische
Stahl-Engineering (BSE) belongs to.
The companies in this branch employ
and market the know-how which has
been developed through countless
improvement ideas and innovations
from people within the group for more
than 50 years of steel making.
BSW’s production facilities have been
designed for about 300,000 tons per year
and have gone through a significant
increase in annual production caused by
both, investment in people and equipment.
Today the plant has the permit and
the investment program set up to reach
2.8 million tons of steel per year. Actually,
more than 2.2 million tons were produced
in the year 2015.
BSW steelmaking facilities comprehend
an EAF melt shop with two 100-t
EAFs equipped with 90 MVA transformers,
an average tap-to-tap time of 38.9 min
in Q1/2019 and an average electrical consumption
of 337 kWh/t for both furnaces,
having produced 449,889 tons of good
billets in Q1/2019.
Badische philosophy
Figure 1. MultiROB robot installed at EAF #2 of BSW (Picture: BSE)
Authors: Ralf Schweikle, Jörg Blank, Badische Stahl-Engineering GmbH;
Matthias Breithaupt, Arne Haferkorn, Badische Stahlwerke GmbH, Kehl,
Germany -– Contact: ralf.schweikle@bse-kehl.de
Many mini mills have very similar equipment
and material flow. But, what has
made BSW to become one of the most
efficient mini mills of the world can be
described under the concept of “Badische
philosophy”: educated and well-trained
people care for reliable equipment, and
STEEL + TECHNOLOGY 1 (2019) No. 4