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Baosteel Rolls First Stainless Coil on New Steckel Mill
Jun. 14, 2010 Baosteel Co., Ltd. Special Steel Business Unit has successfully rolled the first coil of stainless steel on the steckel mill that was just recently put into production. The breakthrough follows production of the first coil of carbon steel, which took place in March of this year.
The steckel mill equipment is the most crucial process step in Baosteel’s Special Steel Alloyed Sheet and Strip Project. The line facilitates production of special steel series alloyed steel grade and special stainless steel sheets and coils, a significant change for the Special Steel Business Unit, which historically could only produce special steel products in the form of wires and rods. The newly extended range of products will allow the business unit to satisfy the scaled needs of high-end customers.
Baosteel officially put the steckel mill project into production in October last year and successfully rolled the first coil of carbon steel on March 20 this year. More significant difficulties had to be resolved during subsequent rolling of stainless steel products, which represent the most important products for verifying production of the equipment.
Since the equipment is imported, the supplier is responsible for the commissioning and performance test, but the supplier is not sufficiently experienced in stainless steel process technology. Moreover, the material characteristics of stainless steel differ much from that of carbon steel, so it is impossible to simply transplant the process control technology without the generation of many rolling defects. Under the circumstances, Baosteel’s of successful rolling of stainless steel coil on the steckel mill within such a short period of time is considered a unique achievement in China.