SMS Meer Supplies Seamless Tube Plant for Hengyang Valin
06/22/2011 - At the Hunan works of Chinese tube producer Hengyang Valin Steel Tube, erection has started of the new PQF® plant supplied by SMS Meer. The mill is designed for an annual capacity of 500,000 tonnes of seamless tubes in diameters up to 180 m.
At the Hunan works of Chinese tube producer Hengyang Valin Steel Tube, erection has started of the new PQF® (Premium Quality Finishing) plant supplied by SMS Meer, Germany, which will enable Hengyang to serve the seamless tube market with all tube sizes.
The mill is designed for an annual capacity of 500,000 tonnes of seamless tubes in diameters up to 180 m. The line is expected to commence production as early as this fall. With the new tube mill, Hengyang will increase its total seamless tube production to 2 million tonnes.
SMS Meer provides the engineering for the complete plant. The core elements such as the PQF® mill proper were manufactured in the Mönchengladbach workshop. Other plant components will be supplied by SMS Meer China, such as an extracting mill and a stretch-reducing mill together with the structural components of the mill stands and stand changing equipment.
In the PQF® mill, the three rolls are positioned uniformly around the tube. Claimed benefits of the PQF® process are reduced tolerance deviations in the roll gap, less material stress, and fewer disruptive influences during the rolling process. The lower material stress makes it possible for the product range to be extended to thin-walled dimensions and higher steel grades.
Project Manager Matthias Terhart of SMS Meer, said: “We have been a partner of Hengyang for decades. In the ‘90s we erected a line for tubes in the lower size range, and in 2005 a further seamless tube plant was added for larger dimensions. Hengyang can now produce all sizes of seamless tubes.”
SMS Meer GmbH is a company of the SMS group, which is, under the roof of the SMS Holding GmbH, a group of companies internationally active in plant construction and mechanical engineering for the steel and nonferrous metals industry. It consists of the two business areas, SMS Siemag and SMS Meer. In 2010, about 9200 employees worldwide generated a turnover of EUR 3 billion.
