Stahlwerk Thüringen GmbH a modern steel production site with ...

Stahlwerk Thüringen GmbH
a modern steel production site with tradition
www.stahlwerk-thueringen.de

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Lisboa
Avilés
Oviedo
Alconera
Fuenlabrada
Badajoz
Huelva
Bilbao
Azpeitia
Madrid
Getafe
Villafranca de los Barros
Jerez de los Caballeros
Sevilla
San Sebastián
Lasao
www.stahlwerk-thueringen.de
Alfonso Gallardo Group
The Gallardo Group is based in Jerez de los Caballeros (Badajoz) and has plants in the
regions Extremadura, Asturias, in the Basque region and in Madrid. The steel plant
Balboa in Jerez de los Caballeros, was put into operation in 1996, and the plant is currently
being expanded to significantly increase the production capacity as well as providing
approx. 500 new workplaces.
Barcelona
The company is expanding the scope of its activities into the area of cement production
and is investing in a refinery which will be brought into operation within the next few
years.

Stahlwerk Thüringen GmbH
There has been a traditional iron and steel production facility at the Unterwellenborn
site in Thuringia since 1872.
Being situated in the centre of the Maxhütte Industrial Area, Stahlwerk Thüringen
produces steel sections which meet national and international standards.
On the 9th of April 1992, ARBED acquired the combined section mill, the core of
Maxhütte Unterwellenborn site. This facility was put into commission in 1985.
The company Stahlwerk Thüringen was established on the 1st of July 1992. It was
the beginning of a comprehensive modernization of the steel production site
Unterwellenborn.
In February 1995, the new electric steel manufacturing plant with continuous casting
was brought into operation. Recycled steel is the main raw material for operating the
electric arc furnace.
The main plant equipment was completely modernised in 2002 making it one of the
most modern rolling mills of its kind in Europe.
Since January 2007, Stahlwerk Thüringen GmbH has been affiliated to the Alfonso
Gallardo Group, the leading manufacturer of re-bars in Spain with about 3,000
employees and one of the major manufacturers of steel sections in Europe. Stahlwerk
Thüringen produces about 1 million tons of sections per year.
Gallardo Sections is the sales organisation of Stahlwerk Thüringen.
www.stahlwerk-thueringen.de
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The electric steel works
STAHLWERK THÜRINGEN at a glance
A consortium consisting of VOEST-ALPINE Industrieanlagenbau GmbH Linz, Austria, and
DEUTSCHE VOEST-ALPINE Industrieanlagenbau Düsseldorf, Germany, was awarded the
contract to build the electric steel works from 1993 to 1995.
The electric steel plant consists of a scrap yard, the smelting shop with smelting furnace
and ladle furnace, the continuous casting machine and all necessary peripheral facilities.
The entire production complex of the new electric steel making plant has been constructed
in strict compliance with the requirements for the protection of the environment
against noise and dust pollution.
Scrap steel yard
The recyclable steel required for the mill comes by rail or road. All incoming scrap is
checked for radioactive substances prior to unloading.
The two gantry cranes are used to transfer the scrap to the stockyard. The stockyard has
a capacity of 45,000 tons. All appropriate environmental precautions have been taken
and a protective layer was installed in order to prevent harmful substances from contaminating
the ground water.
Two remote controlled diesel-hydraulically driven transfer wagons carry the recycled
steel in containers that also function as charging vessels to the melting shop.
charging the scrap basket
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The smelting shop
The electric arc furnace is charged with two containers of recycled steel per cycle; the
furnace needs approx. 50 minutes to convert this material into 120 metric tons of
molten steel. The furnace works on the direct current electric arc furnace principle. An
electric arc is generated between a graphite electrode with a diameter of 750 mm and
the bottom of the furnace which functions as the anode. This energy, supplemented by
natural gas/oxygen burners, is used to smelt the scrap. The power of 120 MVA (Mega Volt
Ampere) required to run this DC arc furnace is almost equivalent to the electric power
required for a town with a population of 120,000 inhabitants.
At the end of the smelting process the molten metal, with a temperature of approximately
1,600 °C, is transferred into a receptacle which is situated below the furnace. This is
the start of the metallurgical further processing of the steel.
After that, the ladle is positioned under the ladle furnace. The ladle furnace is an alternating
current electric arc furnace with a power requirement of 18 MVA; the ladle also
serves as a container for the reaction. The purpose of this process is to achieve the
desired composition and the necessary final temperature of the steel. At this point the
appropriate additional materials (alloys) are added and the metallurgical processes started
with reference to the results from the analysis and measurements. After about
35 minutes the ladle is transported to the casting shop with the transport wagon.
All emissions created during the melting and processing within the casting shop are
extracted using the latest powerful extraction equipment. The improvements to the
extraction plant in 2006 ensure that the legal requirements are met and exceeded.
electric arc furnace
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The continuous casting machine
The ladle is elevated onto the turret that rotates it into the casting position. The tundish
distributes the steel to four strands of water-cooled copper moulds that provide the desired
beam blank shape. Directly after the strands pass through the moulds they undergo
an intensive cooling process. The casting arc radius is 8 meters. After solidification is
completed the strands pass through guides which transport and straighten the strands
out of the casting arc into the horizontal plane ready for the next stage.
pouring into moulds
The strands are then cut into pieces of the required length with automatic flame-cutting
torches. A transfer manipulator transfers the beam blanks with a temperature of approximately
800 °C to the roller table of the rolling mill. The aim of the casting process is to
produce the longest possible continuous casting sequences.
Stahlwerk Thüringen GmbH produces three types of blanks, so called beam blanks. These
blanks are processed to have a similar form to the finished profiles required. This results
in a considerable improvement in productivity for the rolling mill.
beam blanks
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The section rolling mill
The section rolling mill of Stahlwerk Thüringen GmbH was erected between 1980 and
1984 as a combined section rolling mill with the first test rollings taking place in the summer
of 1984. Maxhütte Unterwellenborn awarded the contract for the construction of this
mill to a Belgian consortium. The rolling mill started production in 1985. The necessary
equipment was installed by “Schloemann & Siemag”, a company based in Düsseldorf. In
the summer of 2002 important plant equipments of the mill were replaced by new ones
(reheating furnace, stands, straightener, saws and automation system).
This rolling mill provides facilities for rolling both duo and universal rolling processes. In
contrast to continuous operation where the sections are rolled in stands arranged one
after the other, in this reversing mill the section bar is run forwards and backwards in
several passes through rolls that either have “grooves” or function according to the universal
rolling principle.
Before rolling, the beam blanks - both our own as well as those from external suppliers
- are placed in a natural gas fired pusher furnace where they are heated to a temperature
of approximately 1,200 °C.
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The section rolling mill
exit pusher type furnace
Beam blanks that have been cast at our own steel plant (hot charging) are about 500 °C
when charged into the pusher type furnace. This warmth “transfer” creates heating energy
savings and therefore synergy effects. When the blocks have reached the correct temperature
for rolling, a discharging device takes them out of the furnace and the layers of oxide
that have built up during the reheating process are removed by means of a high-pressure
water descaler (170 bar). This is done by water spraying on the beam.
roughing stand
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tandem group
The three rolling stand assemblies in the rolling mill include, in the rolling sequence, a
break down stand coupled with a cropping saw, a tandem group and a finishing group.
The capacity of the rolling train, depending on the profile form and dimensions, is between
80 up to 180 tons per hour. After having passed the finishing stand, the dimensional
accuracy of the rolled section is measured by means of laser technology.
Using beam blanks of the almost finished dimensions from the electric steel plant means
fewer passes through the rolls and less rolling time per blank when compared to rolling
rectangular blanks.
cooling bed
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The finishing department
straightener
The next stage is the finishing department – the sections, which can be up to 100 m long, cool
down on a walking beam cooling bed – until a temperature of about 80°C is reached – before
being straightened in a 9-roll-straightener. This reduces the stresses within the material caused
by the cooling process.
Then the sections are cut on a cold saw plant, consisting of 3 saws, to get the length requested
by the customers. Lengths from 5 m up to maximal 28 m are possible.
cold saw
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loading in the shipping hall
Two stackers are available for stacking the cut sections into bundles weighing 2 to 5 metric
tons. Once weighed, bundled and labeled, the packages are transferred to the dispatch department
where, using four cranes equipped with lifting magnets, they are either directly loaded
onto goods wagons or put into temporary storage for consolidation with orders from other customers.
Stahlwerk Thüringen GmbH has currently one outdoor sections storage facility with a storage
capacity of 10,000 metric tons of steel sections; here two cranes are deployed for loading the
goods onto trucks.
Our production facilities also include the rolling mill equipment area where the grooved rolls
are processed on eight turning lathes.
outside storage area
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Logistics at Stahlwerk Thüringen
There is an internal railway system for the transportation of steel with a works feeder line and
a railway network of 28 km with 4 radio remote controlled diesel locomotives and 100
wagons.
The Rail Transport Company of Stahlwerk Thüringen (EVU) carries out logistic services for
scrap and steel sections transportation in central Germany and to the Czech Republic.
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Our Management System
Unterwellenborn is well-known for the production of quality steel all over the world. Stahlwerk
Thüringen GmbH is the first metallurgical plant in Germany to have been certified for an integrated
management system according to the standards DIN EN ISO 9001, DIN EN ISO 14001
and OHSAS that includes both the quality assurance in the interests of the clients and the
environmental protection, as well health and safety protection in the workplace.
This results in high quality products, numerous satisfied customers, delivery reliability and
few complaints.
To ensure the product quality
the material characteristics are
verified on different places within
the production process. The
independent laboratory of
Stahlwerk Thüringen GmbH is
regularly checked by the Association
for Accrediting and
Certification. The laboratory and
the sample workshop are impact testing machine tensile testing machine
equipped with modern test
technologies and machines that enable a norm related and efficient testing of the mechanical
properties of our steel products.
A great importance is attached to the optimisation of steel grades, the introduction of new
products in the rolling mill and to the quality development.
Product certification
Stahlwerk Thüringen is certified by Lloyd’s Register EMEA, Germanischer Lloyd, Det
Norske Veritas, Bureau Veritas and is the Q1-supplier of DB AG. All products correspond
to the EU-CE-regulation.
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Our products
Stahlwerk Thüringen GmbH produces a huge range of IPE and HE sections, channels and
UPE-sections and steel sleepers. In all more than 200 sections are produced according
to different national and international standards.
IPE sections according to DIN 1025 / DIN EN 10034
IPE 120 up to IPE 550
IPEA 140 up to IPEA 550
IPEO 180 up to IPEO 550
HE beams according to DIN 1025 / DIN EN 10034
HEAA 100 up to HEAA 260
HEA 100 up to HEA 260
HEB 100 up to HEB 260
HEM 100 up to HEM 220
Channels according to DIN 1026-1
U 100 up to U 400
Channels according to DIN 1026-2
UPE 120 up to UPE 400
Sections according to BS 4
UB 152 x 89 x 16 up to UB 533 x 210 x 122
UC 152 x 152 x 23 up to UC 203 x 203 x 86
BP 203 x 203 x 45
HP 220 x 220 x 57
and BP 203 x 203 x 54
PFC 180 x 75 x 20 and PFC 300 x 100 x 46
Sections according to ASTM A6 / A6M
W 4 x 13 up to W 21 x 83
C 8 up to C 15
HP 8
Sections according to JIS G 3192
Special sections
Special sections for superstructures (sleepers)
Steel grades
¨ General structural steel according to EN 10025-2; ASTM A36;
ASTM A572; ASTM A992; JIS G3101/G3106
¨ Fine grained structural steel according to EN 10025-4
¨ Weather resistant structural steel according to EN 10025-5
¨ Special steel grades for shipbuilding and low temperature use
¨ Offshore-grades according to EN 10225
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Awards
In 1999, 2000 and 2001 the company was awarded the prize “Workplace Seal” of the
Evangelic Church of Germany (EKD) „Arbeit Plus” for its exemplary workplace policies and the
social commitment.
In 2002 Stahlwerk Thüringen was awarded the Thuringian state prize for quality, in 2005 the
prize for industrial safety and in 2006 for safety at work.
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Gesamtherstellung:
Harfe-Verlag und Druckerei GmbH
Bad Blankenburg · Wirbacher Straße 2
Tel. (03 6741) 707-0 · Fax 707-77
How to find us:
STAHLWERK THÜRINGEN GmbH
Kronacher Straße 6
D-07333 Unterwellenborn, Germany
Phone: +49 3671 445 0
Fax: +49 3671 445 107
E-Mail: info@stahlwerk-thueringen.de
Internet: www.stahlwerk-thueringen.de
Weimar
GALLARDO SECTIONS
Phone: +49 3671 4550 6002
Fax: +49 3671 4550 7710
E-Mail: sales-info@gallardo-sections.com
Internet: www.gallardo-sections.com
Stahlwerk
Thüringen
Außenlager
HR B 202 875 Dresdner Bank AG Saalfeld Kreissparkasse Saalfeld-Rudolstadt
Amtsgericht Jena, Registergericht BLZ 820 800 00, Konto 0 620 010 200 BLZ 830 503 03, Konto 11 673