Nucor Corporation entrusted Danieli and its innovative technologies for equipment and automation with new orders valued in excess of US$ 650 million. This represents the largest worldwide order for equipment and automation in the last 20 years.
The leading American EAF steelmaker selected QSP-DUE® Danieli Universal Direct Rolling technology for a new greenfield installation in West Virginia to produce quality hot strip, and cold-strip rolling and processing technology for two cold-strip projects.
The QSP-DUE® Danieli Universal Endless plant will produce 3.0 Mshtpy of quality hot-rolled strip in the widest range of steel grades and most flexible way; strip dimensions up to 2,100 mm wide and from 0.8 to 25.4 mm thick. Danieli QSP-DUE® is the only technology that allows coil-to-coil, semi-endless and endless modes to be performed in a single line.
This will be the first thin-slab casting rolling plant to produce also automotive-exposed grades, allowing Nucor to operate without steel grade limitations.
Danieli endless casting-rolling is an energy-saving operation fitting with Nucor’s green steel approach.
The plant will be managed by Danieli Automation’s advanced process technologies and artificial intelligence. Q3 pulpits will support Nucor Steel operators in supervising fully automated plants, making use of big-data analysis and Q3 manufacturing execution systems. Robotized solutions will increase plant safety according to “zero-men on the floor” concept.
The two cold-strip projects awarded to Danieli will result in additional flat-product finishing capacity for the largest USA steelmaker.
First, a new Pickling Line and Tandem Cold Mill -PLTCM and temper mill to complete the QSP-DUE® quality hot-strip plant will process 2.3 Mshtpy hot-rolled strip, 0.80- to 6.35-mm-thick, up to 1,982-mm-wide, into 0.25- to 3.05-mm-thick cold-rolled strip for both construction and automotive products.
The pickling line will be characterized by patented Turboflo® technology for highly efficient scale removal and high- and adjustable-turbulence on both strip surfaces at speeds up to 250 m/min.
Coupled with the pickling line, a five-stand tandem cold-mill mill featuring Danieli original 6-hi Optimized Shaped Roll Technology (OSRT) will ensure the best strip flatness, thickness control and performance stability at speeds up to 1,200 m/min.
A 0.45 Mshtpy stand-alone temper mill to improve material formability, flatness and surface finish grades in dry and wet tempering modes will complete the Danieli supply for this new cold-mill complex.
A second order for cold-strip technology is for a galvanizing line and a color-coating line to be installed at the existing Nucor Steel Crawfordsville plant, Indiana, to serve markets for steel buildings and home appliances.
Danieli Automation will provide advanced process control systems to supervise operations, running the lines in automatic mode, guaranteeing quality and production consistency.
The startup of these plants will begin in mid-2024, with operation by the end of 2024.
Furthermore, Danieli is currently upgrading the Nucor Steel Gallatin plant from CSP to QSP® technology; the full startup of this QSP® plant is expected by April 2022. This original Danieli technology applied at Gallatin will be the first in the USA. It’s winning layout configuration has been proven successful since the first installation at Algoma Steel, Canada, in operation since 1997 and continuously improved since then.
