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IAS to Upgrade Zinc Coating System
for Crawfordsville HDG

Feb. 25, 2004 — Nucor Steel has signed an agreement with Industrial Automation Services (IAS) to design, supply and commission a replacement zinc coating mass control and reporting system (COMAC) for their Crawfordsville, Ind., galvanizing line.

Industrial Automation’s COMAC utilizes a physics-based coating mass model to generate accurate knife-to-strip distances and stripping gas pressure references. Advanced signal processing algorithms allow the system to estimate coating thickness during order transitions within one coating gauge scan. The resulting control actions minimize out-of-spec material, while the minimized coating standard deviation allows for zinc savings.

The new system, along with a new IRM coating gauge, will be retrofit into the existing Level 1 control equipment.

IAS will execute engineering design, project management, installation assistance, commissioning, operator/maintenance training, and a twelve-month online maintenance contract from the company’s offices in Pittsburgh, PA, USA and Newcastle, NSW, Australia.

IAS conducted the last two cold mill upgrades for Nucor Crawfordsville in addition to various other process improvement projects.

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