1,000 Tonne Finishing Mill Stand For Chinese Steelmaker, Shagang
DavyMarkham has completed the machining and test assembling of a 5m wide steel finishing mill stand, destined for China, which weighed over 1,000 tonnes when fully erected. It comprised two massive 4-piece bolted housings, the finishing stand will form the centrepiece of a ‘greenfield’ heavy plate rolling mill project for Chinese steelmaker Zhangjiagang Hongchang Plate Co, known as Shagang, and the order was placed by global engineering and plant building group Voest-Alpine Industrieanlagenbau GmbH (VAI) and its Sheffield subsidiary VAI UK, now Siemens-VAI (UK).
Similar contracts are being undertaken for JSPL and ESSAR, both India, via Siemens-VAI (UK).
DavyMarkham machined the table for the largest hydraulic screw press ever built. The press being built by SMS Eumuco of Leverkusen, Germany for Austrian company Böhler Schmiedetechnik for pressing jet engine components.
The order for the castings was secured by Sheffield Forgemasters, beating off stiff competition from the Far East, and the complex machining was subcontracted to DavyMarkham, employing its impressive CNC milling and boring resources.
The table, measured 7.5m long x 4m high x 3m high, and the traverse, was slightly higher at 3.25m. Each casting was initially rough machined, then internally and externally verified using ultrasonic testing and magnetic particle inspection, before finish machining for a smooth surface and to achieve strict mechanical tolerances.
