Supply of a New Pickling Line to Aceria Compacta de Bizkaia, Bibao/Spain, for Value-Added Ultra-Thin Hot Strip

摘要

In the year 2000 ACB (Aceria Compacta de Bizkaia, Bilbao/Spain-a company of the ARCELOR Group) decided to double the capacity of their thin-slab continuous caster and of their hot-strip mill to increase their total production output from 1,000,000 to 1,800,000 t/a. A new pickle line was required to process the additional tonnages of hot-rolled strip and had to be capable of also processing thin hot-strip gauges that could be directly sold on the market as a substitute product to cold-rolled strip. VAT Cosim, a company of the VAT (VOEST-ALPINE Industrieanlagenbau) Group, was awarded the complete project for the engineering and supply of this new pickle line. The project featured the supply of a Clecim~(TM) Mash Lap Welder to join the hot-rolled strip, a wet-type scale breaker to improve the strip flatness, turbulent-type pickling tanks to ensure a high degree of operational efficiency and flexibility as well as a 4-high temper mill to provide the necessary surface conditioning to the rolled strip. The general layout of the pickling line supplied to ACB can be seen in Figure 1.