ArcelorMittal Installs New Ladle Furnace in Hamburg Steelworks
03/27/2013 - ArcelorMittal inaugurated a new €3.5 million ladle furnace in its Hamburg, Germany, steelworks.
ArcelorMittal inaugurated a new ladle furnace in its Hamburg, Germany, steelworks.
Ladle furnaces are used for the refinement of the liquid steel. Various alloying elements which give the steel its desired properties are added in the ladle furnace depending on the steel grade. The liquid steel is brought up to within a few degrees of exactly the right casting temperature before the melt is transferred to the continuous casting mill after approximately 50 minutes.
Lutz Bandusch, CEO of ArcelorMittal Hamburg, said, “The new ladle furnace, in which we have invested €3.5 million, will make a significant contribution to further improvement in the quality of our wire rod.”
Quality wires make high demands on the steel’s level of purity. Tyre insertion wires, for example, are ultimately no thicker than a hair and processing problems occur if there are even the slightest impurities in the steel. The additional ladle furnace extends the treatment time so that it becomes possible to produce even these sensitive qualities with the best possible result. The furnace also has a redesigned wire feeding machine which enables additives to be fed into the furnace in the form of wire.
Arnaud Poupart-Lafarge, CEO of Long Carbon Europe, of which the Hamburg plant is a part, said, “Our Hamburg plant is one of the world’s leading suppliers of high-quality wire rod. We are firmly convinced that ArcelorMittal will also produce high-quality products in Hamburg in the future.”
ArcelorMittal Hamburg was established in 1969 as Hamburger Stahlwerke GmbH. The plant has a special feature: its own direct reduction plant, the only one in Western Europe, which generates up to 600,000 tonnes of sponge iron per year. ArcelorMittal Hamburg is also in the top group among the world’s leading plants in the fields of productivity and energy efficiency. Its location in Germany’s largest sea port ensures important logistical advantages.
