WIRE ROD MILL

The Wire Rod Mill of VSP is high speed 4 strand No-Twist continuous mill designed to produce

8,50,000 T of wire rod coils. The mill is designed to produce plain wire rods from 5.5 mm to 12.7

mm dia and Rebar in 8mm, 10mm and 12mm diameter in coil form. However sizes up to 14mm

of 610 mm dia x 1000 mm length are used at stand no.1 to 5 placed at 21" housing and rolls of

490 mm dia x 920 mm are used in stand 6 & 7 placed at 16" housing. The primary reducer ,

secondary reducer and universal spindles are used to connect DC motor drive and mill stand. The

feed stock reduces to 46 mm square after reduction in 7 roughing mill stands and moves at a

speed of approx 1 M/sec. The average reduction in each stand varies from 20-30%. The pass

design is oval-round sequence and stand 7 is having square pass. The ovals are twisted using

twist roller guide at oval pass delivery and fed to round pass through roller entry guide. At all other

places static guides are used for guiding the stock to roll groove.

Four rotating crop and cobble shears are provided after stand 7, one for each line. The cold & split

front end of the bar head is cropped automatically before feeding to intermediate stand. In case

of disturbances in forward equipments/areas, the shear chops the complete stock into small pieces.

The intermediate group of stand comprises of 6 two high horizontal stands. Rolls of 490 mm x 800
mm are used in 16" housing for stand 8 to 10 and rolls of 375 mm x 700 mm are used in 12"

housing at stand 11 to 13. Roll material is SG Cast iron. Roll neck bearing is of Morgoil design.

The stock is reduced to approx 23mm round and moves at about 5 m/sec after stand no. 13. The

primary reducers and universal shafts are used to connect DC mill drives and mill stands. The roll

pass sequence is oval-square and stand 13 is having round pass. The ovals are twisted by twist

roller guides installed at each oval pass delivery and fed to round pass using roller entry guides.

At all other places, static guides are used for guiding the bar. All the twist guides and roller entry

guide rollers in roughing and intermediate mill are cooled by water & lubricated by oil-air mixture.

Roll passes in mill stands are cooled by water at 3-4 kg/cm2 pressure. Material from stand no 13

is fed to individual finishing lines using rod feed troughs.

The 4-prefinishing blocks, one at each line, are installed ahead of stand 13. The rod feed troughs

guides the stock coming out from stand 13 to prefinishing block via horizontal looper. The prefinishing

block is having one horizontal and one vertical stand enclosed in a closed housing & driven by a

one common drive. The stock size is reduced to approx 19mm round at this stage and speed goes

upto as high as 8 M/sec. The tungsten carbide roll rings of 8" diameter are used in these stands

for rolling of stock. These rings are mounted on a tapered shaft at 400 bar hydraulic pressure.

A water cooling stretch named A1 water box is installed ahead of these prefinishing block to
facilitate partial cooling of stock before final rolling at finishing block. This facility is used mainly

during high carbon & rebar rolling for grain refinement & increased UTS in final wire rod. Water

cooling at 6 bar pressure is available in this box followed by water & air stripper to deliver water

at 12 bar & air at 6 bar pressure for stripping of water droplets from stock surface.

A crop & dividing shear is provided ahead of water cooling stretch to crop cold front end of bar

before feeding to finishing blocks. Also, this gives a dividing cut to bar in the event of trouble in

equipments in forward stream and the bar gets diverted to a chopper located at down +0.00 level

with the help of 3-way diverter switch. There are 2 choppers installed at +0.00 level which is

common for line 1&2 and line 3&4.

Horizontal looper is provided before 10 stand No twist finishing block. The looper ensures tension

free rolling. The loop height control is automatic through computer using field signals from loop

scanners provided individually for all horizontal loopers.

are being rolled presently. The mill is constructed at an elevated level of +5350mm.

Rolled billets of 125 mm x 125 mm square cross section, length ranging from 9.8 m to 10.4 m

and weighing approx 1250 kgs are used as input material. The mill is designed to roll steel stock

of 0.9% max. Carbon content.

The rolled billets received from billet mill are placed on charging grid I & II at +0.00 level in packet
form with the help of electro magnet cranes. The billets are moved towards Cross transport by

means of 4 rope operated pawl transfer. The charging grid I has AC drive and charging grid-ll is

operated by DC drive. The cross transport receives the billet individually from charging grid-ll and

transfer them to billet elevator. The billet elevator takes the individual billets to mill floor level at

+5.35 M. Using billet transfer device and billet positioning device, the packet of 4billets are made

on approach roller table guoup-1 which are further carried forward to furnace entry using another

4 groups of roller tables arranged in tandem.

After the billets are positioned in front of walking beam furnace, the walking beam of furnace

collects the billets from roller table and charge them into furnace. The furnace is combined type

walking hearth cum walking beam furnace of 200 T/hr capacity. The walking beam is operated by

180 bar hydraulic pressure system. The furnace is approx 42M long and 11M wide. The billets are

heated to 1200° C gradually in 4 different zone using 60 flat flame roof burners and 6 long flame

burners at bottom soaking zone. The in-house generated mixed gas (mixture of Coke Oven gas,

BF gas & LD gas) of calorific value 2000 ± 15% Kcal/Nm3 is used as fuel. The mixed gas and

combustion air is preheated to 250° C and 520°'C respectively in recuperators before combustion

at burners. The heating time is approx 71 minutes and each walking beam cycle is 72 sec in

which billet packets are moved by 900 mm. the furnace is equipped with waste heat recovery
systems i.e. gas & air recuperators. The combustion products are let out into atmosphere through

a 45 M high chimney. The complete process control is done by microprocessor based instrumentation

control system. Slight Positive and oxidizing atmosphere is maintained inside the furnace. The

homogenously heated billets are discharged by hydraulically driven discharging machine called

Peel bar into groove of stand 1.

A billet withdrawing machine is arranged between furnace exit and stand 1. It uses pinch roll to

feed or return billets from or into furnace. The four shiftable position billet switch is provided in front

of withdrawing machine to feed four strands of mill individually. A 4 strand pendulum shear and

high pressure (180 bar) water descaler is arranged between billet switch and stand 1. Presently

these are taken out of operation.

The roughing mill comprises of seven continuous 4-strand two high horizontal stands. The mill

stand housings are of closed top design and roll are having Morgoil oil film neck bearing. The rolls

The 10-stand no twist finishing block is driven by two 2000 KW motors arranged in tandem

connected through 3 high speed increaser to the common line shaft of block. The max speed of

stock goes upto 76m/sec during rolling of 5.5mm section. The bar speed gradually comes down

as the finished size increases. The stands are arranged at 45° to rolling line and 90° to each other

to facilitate twist free rolling. The tungsten carbide roll rings are mounted / dismounted on top &
bottom tapered shafts of each stand by hydraulic pressure. Initial 2 stands in finishing block are

provided with 8" TC roll rings and balance 8 stands are provided with 6" TC roll rings. The pass

sequence is oval-round. The roller entry guides are provided at entry of each round pass. Oil-air

mixture is used for guide roller lubrication and rollers are water cooled.TC rings are cooled by 6

bar water pressure.

All the 25 stands are used for rolling of 5.5 to 6.5 mm size. For rolling 7mm to 8mm, only 23 stands

are used and balance are kept as dummy. Only 21 stands are used for 9mm and 10mm, for 12

& 12.7 mm sizes 19 stands are kept in operation and for 14mm rolling only 17 stands are used

and rest are kept dummy.

The rollring groove life varies from 9000 -10000 T in stand 1 to 600 - 800 T in stand 25. After

rolling of specified tonnage, roll or pass changes are carried out.

Snap shears are provided at entry of prefinishing block and finishing block to stop metal entry

inside block in the event of cobbles or any other trouble with the blocks.

After final rolling at finishing block, controlled cooling of wire rod starts using retarded stelmor

cooling system. Three water cooling boxes and in between two equalizing zones are provided

ahead of finishing block. The wire rods coming out from finishing block are cooled down to a

temperature required for laying depending upon the steel quality. One pinch roll unit is located
ahead of water cooling stretch to carry the product to laying head positioned at 10° to horizontal.

The laying head deposits the wire rod loops onto stelmor roller conveyor. Tungsten carbide roll

rings are mounted on pinch roll for pinching of rod.

Each stelmor conveyor conveys fanned out loops from each line across 10 air cooling zones upto

coil forming chamber located at the end of conveyor. By varying the conveyor speed and fan on/

off sequence cooling rate can be changed to get desired mechanical properties in finished wire

rods.

The vertical coil formed inside the chamber on mandrel is received by downender and loaded onto

C-hook horizontally at downender station. The C-hooks are carried by a power & free hook

conveyor circuit. 180 C-hooks are carried in 5 interconnected hook conveyor circuits divided into

two sectors. Each hook is having a bar code plate which is read by reading units connected to

computer for identification of coil loaded onto hook. Each sector is equipped with inspection loop,

3 automatic compacting & tying machines and 3 coil unloading stations called turnstiles. Coils are

tied by 6 mm wire rods at 4 places in hydraulic coil compactors. The quality department personnel

take the sample at inspection loop to check size and test mechanical properties. The appropriate

grade is fed to production control computer. The coils are finally taken out from turnstiles by EOT

magnet cranes. The identification labels are attached to coils at coil labeling area located before
coil unloading station. The coil identification details like heat no, grade and size is available on

production control computer mask at these stations.

All hydraulic & water systems are installed in cellars 1 to 7 at +0.00 level for mill & furnace

equipments. The hydraulic systems for coil handling area equipments are at cellars 8 to 10 located

below zero level.

ELECTRICAL EQUIPMNTS

All the main drives of mill are run by DC motors. Individual motors are employed for driving stands

At lower level programmable logic controllers Siemens Simatic S150 are used realize the subordinate

control function using signals received from field devices. The production control computer is

responsible for the following functions:

1. Automatic online material tracking upto coil unloader

2. Acquisition & compilation of production data

3. Generation, storage of rolling & cooling programme.

4. Generation of production reports.

5. Roll/ring shop management

6. Output to VDUfs

7. Printout of various masks as required.

8. Communication with process control computer.

The process control computer is responsible for:

- Storage of current rolling & cooling programme.

- Generation of reference values & automatic control of main and inline auxiliary

drives.

- Cascade control

- Loop control

- Cobble detection & initiation of chopping in RM & FB shear

- Crop end length control

- Controls of water boxes as per cooling programme

- Communication with PLCfs and production control computer

The programmable logic controllers are used for the following function:

- Interlocking & sequence control of all DC drives except the switch in logic for

individual thyristor convertors.

- Starting/interlocking and sequence control of AC drives.

- Interlocking control of solenoid valves.

OTHERS
Press to talk system is installed at all pulpits/offices/cellars and various locations at site two way

effective communication.

Furnace is extended into 2 bays but complete mill and coil handling area is located in one bay.

Each bay is having approx 36 M span.

Furnace bay is equipped with one EOT crane of 20/5 T capacity. The mill floor is equipped with

3 EOT cranes of 30/5 T capacity. The coil storage bay is expanded in two bays. 5 EOT magnet

cranes of rotating trolley type are provided in GH bay HJ bay is equipped with 2 such cranes.

upto stand 13 of intermediate mill (4 strands) and pre-finishing and finishing blocks of single

strands. Closed circuit centralized ventilation system is used for cooling of main drive motors along

with other auxiliary DC motors. Main drive motor armature circuit is provided with individual thyristor

power supplying system comprising 11 KV/750 V converter transformer, non-reversible fully 3-

phase thyristor convertors, DC reactor, single pole high speed DC circuit breaker and double pole

no load DC contactor. The field circuits of motor are fed by individual thyristor power supply system

comprising isolation transfer and 3 phase fully controlled thyristor converter.

The DC drive control system (analogue- Siemens) is upgraded to digital drive system of Siemens

in the year 2005.

The total drive motors of mill consist of:

- DC main drive motors : 25 nos.

- DC auxiliary drive motors: 20 nos. of AISE type

- DC auxiliary motors: 48 nos. of industrial type

- AC motors.

All the logic controls for various operations are controlled by PLCis. A total of 19 no. of Siemens

make PLCis are connected to computer for performing computer linked operations. The PLCis and

DC drive control / regulation equipments are located in chilled water cooled ECRs. There are two

ECRs, one each for mill side equipment control and another for coil handling area equipment

control.

Closed circuit cameras are installed for each laying head and horizontal looper before finishing

block to monitor coil laying and looping. The monitors are installed in respective pulpits.

The speeds of Finishing block, pinch roll and laying head are synchronized for smooth rolling and

coil laying.

AUTOMATION & CONTROL SYSTEM

A distributed control philosophy with three level hierarchical structure is being adopted for wire rod

mill automation system. At the top of the control hierarchy production control computer Siemens

R 30 with 512 K words memory is provided. A process control computer Siemens R 30K with 128K
words memory for complete control of rolling & cooling process and a mill fault monitoring computer

Siemens R10 with 128K words memory for acquisition, monitoring & logging of mill faults are

provided in the middle of control hierarchy. The fault details are printed out continuously.

The mill is commissioned on 22nd Novf90 with 2 strands and balance 2 strands were commissioned

in Mari91.

The mill is designed & commissioned by M/s SMS, Germany. Electrics & Automation by Siemens,

Germany & BHEL. The furnace design & commissioning is done by M/s Stein Heurty, France. The

erection of mill & finishing equipments are done by M/s MECON and furnace by M/s EPI.

TECHNO-ECONOMIC PARAMETERS

Yield :

Rolling rate :

Sp. Gas consumption :

Sp. Power consumption :

Mill utilization :

97% min

190 T/hr max

260 Mcal/T ( max.) of billet rolled

125 KWH/T of billet rolled

67 % minimum