May 30, 2006 — Sterling Steel Co., Sterling, Ill., recently started up full industrial operation of its high-speed wire rod mill for engineering steels. The mill features North America’s first Danieli EWR billet welder.

Normal production operation commenced one week after the first test weldings. In its first month of operation, the line successfully welded a total of 19,500 high-Carbon steel billets, corresponding to approx 27,000 tons of endlessly rolled wire rod coils.

Operation of the new billet welder has brought substantial benefits in plant productivity and efficiency. Plant yield increased to 99.5% from the previous 95.5%, mainly due to the elimination of inter-billet times. The mill also achieved a significant savings in plant manpower due to elimination of operators at the roller conveyor and trimming stations — 12 people less over four shifts. The resulting improvement in production costs will lead to an extremely short return of investment.

The line performs automatic continuous welding of 130x130 mm, 11-meter long high-Carbon steel billets at rates of up to 100 tons/hour, in a wide range of grades for engineering steel wire rod for automotive applications, mainly for spring steels. Coil weight selection from the endlessly rolled wire rod is performed by a new shearing unit installed in the coil reforming tube, at the end of the roller conveyor. Wire rod produced at the mill is directly drawn to different diameters and oil tempered in various downstream companies belonging to the same Group.

Sterling Steel’s new state-of-the-art line also features an innovative layout which accommodates the facility’s space restriction between the existing reheat furnace and the first roughing stand. The EWR line was installed behind the reheat furnace with consequent reversing of the furnace unloading side and passing of the welded billets throughout the same.