POSCO, Korea, has awarded a contract to SMS Demag, a company of the SMS group, Germany, for the supply of a continuous tandem mill with 18-high cold rolling stands for the economical production of high-quality special steel strip. According to POSCO, this is the world’s first continuous tandem mill with 18-high cold rolling stands for this purpose. With this high-performance plant, POSCO intends to expand its production capacity at the Pohang location in order to be able to meet the growing demand for stainless steel strip.
The plant is designed for an annual production of 500,000 t of stainless steel cold strip and processes both hot strip (annealed and pickled) as well as rolled cold strip of the AISI 300 and AISI 400 grades. Here, strips with widths of up to 1,350 mm and a maximum entry thickness of 5 mm can be rolled down to minimum final thicknesses of 0.4 mm.
The centerpiece of the tandem mill comprises four 18-high cold rolling stands which thanks to the slim work rolls and the correspondingly high forming capacity are ideally suited for the rolling of stainless steel strip.
Another significant feature of the plant is the inline strip inspection, facilitating direct quality control of the finished product. For the cooling and ultra-fine filtration of the rolling oil used, provision is made for a regenerative filter system so as to ensure careful handling of the resources used and of the environment. Under the technical leadership of SMS Demag, a future-oriented plant concept is being developed for the economical production of high-quality stainless steel strip.
