Rolling thin to drive green
The thinner the strip, the more efficient the electrical equipment. The challenge for steelmakers is to roll the strip down to minimum thickness without breaking it while maintaining surface quality and flatness.
Unique achievement in cold rolling
Fives has set a record in silicon steel cold rolling. The DMS 20Hi EcoMill, a proprietary technology developed for cold rolling, enables a strip to be rolled down to 0.1mm on the full width of 1,250 mm, which represents a unique achievement in the industry.
The new rolling mill was supplied to Xinyu, part of China’s Baowu Group, and is capable of producing 100,000 metric tons of high-quality NGO grades at a rolling speed of 800m/min. These steel grades are mainly dedicated to high- performance electrical motors requiring high-quality silicon steel.
Technological superiority
The 20Hi rolling mill has proven to be the best available technology to allow steelmakers to achieve the targeted properties in terms of thickness and flatness with a high level of productivity.
The latest developments on the DMS 20Hi EcoMill include increased rolling speed and strip tension, advanced roll gap lubrication for higher product quality (flatness and magnetic properties), enhanced fume extraction, better strip wiping efficiency and an innovative concept for flatness actuators.
These improvements have enabled the DMS 20Hi EcoMill to establish a new standard of performance that has never been reached before.
In addition, Fives has developed a new technology – RollBotTM – that automatically performs the roll exchange on 20Hi cold rolling mills with minimum manual intervention. This automated operation ensures maximum safety, quality, and productivity of the mill.