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Yichang Three Gorges Orders Air-Knife Systems from FOEN
Apr. 29, 2010 Yichang Three Gorges Quantong Colored and Galvanized Plate Co., Ltd. has placed an order with Fontaine Engineering und Maschinen GmbH (FOEN) for the supply of six air-knife systems inclusive of the electrical and automation package. The systems are to be integrated into six hot-dip galvanizing lines and will reportedly allow easy and precise setting of the zinc coating thickness.
All of the plants are virtually identical and will be erected in the immediate vicinity of Yichang, a city with over a million inhabitants, and the Three Gorges Dam. The plants are scheduled for commissioning in the second half of 2010.
The supply scope comprises the design, manufacture, and commissioning of the air-knife systems, which include an automatic control facility that regulates the air-knife parameters with the aid of a product database. Coating qualities can thus be reliably generated and reproduced. To enable continuous testing of the coating quality, X-ray coating-thickness measuring devices from IMS will be included with each air-knife system supplied by FOEN.
The plants are designed for coating thicknesses between 40 and 275 g/m2 (zinc) and between 30 and 200 g/m2 (zinc-aluminum alloy) at a strip speed of 30 to 130 m/min. The strip widths are between 1000 and 1250 mm at strip gages between 0.5 and 2 mm. Each plant can produce 450,000 tonnes per year.
Fontaine Engineering und Maschinen GmbH is a company of the SMS group, which is, under the roof of the holding SMS GmbH, a group of companies internationally active in plant construction and mechanical engineering for the steel and nonferrous metals industry. It consists of two business areas: SMS Siemag and SMS Meer. In 2009, around 9000 employees worldwide generated a turnover of more than EUR 3.8 billion.