ArcelorMittal responds to wind sector demands with steel plates of greater dimensions
- Thanks to investment in the new continuous casting of the Avilés Steelworks and the necessary adaptations carried out on the Gijón heavy plate mill, the plant is already supplying steel plates that respond to the new needs of the wind power sector - particularly for offshore wind farm projects.
- The first of these plates, weighing almost 18 tons, was produced on the heavy plate mill in October 2020 with a length of 10 m, a width of 2.5 m, and a thickness of 90 mm.
Comprehensive remodelling
The Avilés Steelworks completed its second phase of comprehensive remodelling in January 2020, which involved the modernisation of its no.2 continuous casting machine. This has enabled the production of slabs of greater widths (2200 mm) and greater thicknesses (365 mm). The work undertaken on the continuous caster responds to the needs of our European customers to benefit from heavier plates required in the fabrication of the latest generations of wind towers.
The ability to manufacture plates of about 20 tons improves competitive position
In addition to the modernisation carried out at the Avilés Steelworks, the Gijón heavy plate mill has been adapted to be able to receive the new large slabs and carry out their rolling.
After the production improvements carried out in recent months, in which the Avilés Steelworks has been gradually increasing the thickness of its slabs, the heavy plate mill at the Gijón factory is now capable of producing plates of close to 20 tons unit weight.
The revamping of the no. 2 continuous casting line in Avilès also includes the implementation of state-of-the-art technologies such as Dynamic soft reduction (DSR) and new systems allowing better control of inclusions improving the quality of the slabs, which will be rolled to produce heavy plates.
Therefore, the plates produced from these slabs in our nearby Gijón heavy plate mill are benefitting from these technologies with better internal (less segregation, better internal quality, better homogeneity) and external (cleaner surface aspects) conditions.
These upgrades allow us to extend our technical offer and to supply the full specification of different sizes and grades for more required projects in the wind sector and also in the oil & gas, shipbuilding, and civil engineering sectors.
Text:
ArcelorMittal Spain
Images:
©ArcelorMittal Spain, ©Ian Dick