NEW FAGOR ARRASATE INSPECTION LINE FOR ARCELORMITTAL-AVILÉS

The tinplate strip inspection was an important issue for ArcelorMital at Avilés, as it had caused a bottle neck at the facility. ArcelorMittal has the capacity to process up to 35,000 tonnes/month. Keeping in mind that 40% of this capability needs to be reprocessed, therefore, of this a total of 14,000 tonnes/ month needs to be inspected. However, the inspection capacity prior to this project was only 12,000 tonnes/month at the plant. For this very reason, Fagor Arrasate received an order to supply a new Inspection Line to increase the inspection capacity and for the release of the existing tinplate coils stock at the facility.

The installation of this new inspection line will become an important service for the Arcelor- Mittal Aviles facility due to its extremely rapid strip processing speed (up to 1,200 m/min for top grade tinplate, as described below in greater detail) that will allow to classify quickly if the coils coming from the tinplate line are correctly identified as top grade or second grade material.

Coils weighing up to 25 tonnes and 2,100 mm in diameter can be loaded if they are top grade tinplate and coils weighing up to 6 tonnes and up to 1,200 mm in diameter for a lower grade. They may be strips of between 600mm and 1250mm in width with a thicknesses of between 0.1mm and 0.5mm. The inspection is conducted vertically and it is performed from a cabin attached to the line using a system of mirrors. A separator at the welder output allows for the strip to be taken to its corresponding inspection area and to its output zone depending on its corresponding grade.