At Feralpi Siderurgica, located in the Brescia province, Primetals Technologies will be overhauling a 6-strand billet caster, a project that will lift the caster’s capacity and allow it to produce larger billets. Elsewhere, Acciai Speciali Terni has selected Danieli Automation to upgrade the process control system on the No. 3 slab caster, bringing it in-line with the process control system on the No. 7 caster. 

“The complete process control system will be substituted on turnkey basis with the latest Danieli Automation 3Q suite, including powerful tools for 'Q3 intelligence' data analysis aimed at monitoring and improving slab quality,” Danieli said in a statement. 

The work is to be carried out during a scheduled outage this summer. 

Meanwhile, Primetals Technologies will be installing components that will increase the Feralpi Siderurgica caster’s capacity from 1.1 million metric tons to 1.2 million metric tons. The improvements also will take billet dimensions from 140 mm square to 150 mm square. 

“The casting machine will be equipped with a new DiaMold high-speed mold for billet casters, characterized by tapered mold tubes and open bottom-mold corners to reduce strand friction. The DynaFlex hydraulic oscillator with on-line and flexible adjustment of the mold oscillation parameters serves to improve surface quality. The scope of supply also includes a new secondary cooling and a dummy bar head,” Primetals Technologies said. 

Start-up is scheduled for early 2019.