Feb. 15, 2007 — Ipsco has contracted the Joest Group to upgrade its LMF alloy handling system at the company’s Muscatine, Iowa, facility.

For the upgrade, Ipsco plans to expand capacities of the current Joest system—originally installed for the turnkey supply of the Muscatine facility—and eliminate the remaining manual LMF alloy handling. The existing six-day bins will be upgraded to 14 larger ones.

Joest will also supply a completely new weighing system with two independent weighing hoppers mounted on rails, as well as specially designed tube feeders to convey the material directly into the LMF ladles. The existing Joest vibratory feeders will be upgraded, and the through put will be increased so the facility’s two ladle stands may be operated independently.

Tube feeders mounted on pivot frames and connected by special chute layouts will form an almost completely covered unit, which will help to significantly reduce dust and avoid spillage of expensive alloying materials. The current belt conveyors cause significant maintenance problems and waste a lot of alloys.

Joest will manufacture Ipsco’s system at its headquarters in Germany because of the large number of reused drives that are to be refurbished and checked at the JVM-Joest motor manufacturing plant. HERWEG experts on the weighing technology will also be available to assist with the work at Joest headquarters.

Prior to placing the order, Ipsco had previewed Joest ExtroVib system installations at Thyssen and Solvay.