Taganrog Metallurgical Works (Tagmet), Russia, recently celebrated its first cast on the five-strand continuous bloom caster supplied by SMS Demag AG, Germany.

The new caster at the Taganrog location (near Rostov) produces round blooms sized from 150 to 400-mm diameter. The machine head is equipped with a parabolic mold, with stirrers and with the resonance oscillator developed and patented by SMS Demag. It can also be used with square molds in the section sizes 150 x 150 mm to 340 x 340 mm.

SMS Demag’s scope of supply also included the torch-cutting and sample-cutting machine as well as the stamping machine.

The new caster has resulted in lower production costs and higher billet quality. It completely supersedes the previous ingot-casting units at the plant, which has an annual capacity of around 950,000 tonnes.

This is the first of two identically designed continuous casters that SMS Demag will supply to the TMK Group. SMS Demag had also modernized another four-strand continuous bloom caster; this caster was taken successfully into operation in January 2006 at the Volzhsky Pipe Plant in Volgograd.

SMS Demag AG forms part of the Metallurgical Plant and Rolling Mill Technology Business Area of the SMS group. SMS GmbH is the holding for a group of companies internationally active in plant construction and mechanical engineering relating to the processing of steel, non-ferrous metals and plastics. The group is divided into the Business Areas of Metallurgical Plant and Rolling Mill Technology, Tube, Long Product and Forging Technology and Plastics Technology. In the year 2005 some 9250 employees worldwide generated a turnover of about EUR 2.33 billion.