Electrical Upgrades Underway at Gerdau Bar Mill
01/04/2016 - Italy’s Automazioni Industriali Capitanio (AIC) is installing a new rolling mill control system at Gerdau's Jackson, Tenn., USA bar plant, the company has announced.
AIC said the work, which is underway, is a next step in broader upgrades it is making to the facility -- AIC already has replaced the mill's rolling stand drives. Gerdau has issued a final acceptance certificate on that project, AIC said.
Under the project, AIC replaced all of the drives on the rolling stands and the furnace pinch roll with new ABB DCS800 drives. In all, 17 drives were replaced.
The mill, however, kept its existing Automax programmable logic controller (PLC). Adapting the new drives to the existing PLC was complicated, AIC said, because the old drives were tightly integrated with the complex, multi-CPU Automax.
The solution was to install a Rockwell ControlLogix PLC as a gateway, communicating on one side with the Automax PLC and with the drives on the other side. The new PLC also is running the core safety system, which has been designed to be expanded in future projects.
The project was carried out during four short shutdowns, with practically no impact on production schedules, AIC said.
Under the project, AIC replaced all of the drives on the rolling stands and the furnace pinch roll with new ABB DCS800 drives. In all, 17 drives were replaced.
The mill, however, kept its existing Automax programmable logic controller (PLC). Adapting the new drives to the existing PLC was complicated, AIC said, because the old drives were tightly integrated with the complex, multi-CPU Automax.
The solution was to install a Rockwell ControlLogix PLC as a gateway, communicating on one side with the Automax PLC and with the drives on the other side. The new PLC also is running the core safety system, which has been designed to be expanded in future projects.
The project was carried out during four short shutdowns, with practically no impact on production schedules, AIC said.
