Mukand Sumi Special Steel Ltd. (MSSSL), a joint venture of Mukand Ltd., India, and Sumitomo Corporation, Japan, has placed an order with SMS group for the supply of a state-of-the art Special Bar Quality (SBQ) rolling mill for the production of straight round and hexagon bars, wire rod and bar-in-coils. The new mill will be installed near Hospet in Karnataka, India, adjoining Mukand’s existing steel making facilities. Mukand and Sumitomo Corporation are aiming to export specialty steels across the globe from this unit.
In a first stage, the mill will have an annual capacity of 400,000 tons, but will already be prepared for a capacity increase to 600,000 tons per year in a second stage.
The mill will comprise a walking-beam reheating furnace with a capacity of 75 tons per hour in the first stage and 110 tons per hour in a second stage, 18 housingless two-high stands in H/V arrangement, a Precision Sizing Mill (PSM®), shears, cooling lines, cooling bed with finishing facilities, a wire rod line with a ten-stand wire rod block, laying head, Loop Cooling Conveyor (LCC®), coil handling equipment and a coil compactor.
A pouring reel line with two coilers specially designed for scratch-free guiding of finished products will complete the mill.
The heart of the mill is an advanced three-roll PSM® with hydraulic roll adjustment under load. All finished sizes with diameters ranging from 17 to 65 millimeters can be produced cost-effectively even in small batches at a maximum speed of 14 meters per second.
Wire rod in diameters from 5.5 to 22 millimeters will be produced on the wire rod block at a maximum speed of 90 meters per second. The layout of the wire rod outlet will also consider a future upgrade with a MEERdrive®PLUS sizing block.
"With this new mill, we will be able to expand our position as a leading specialty steel supplier for the fast-growing Indian and worldwide automotive and engineering industries," says Arvind M. Kulkarni, Director, Mukand Sumi Special Steel Ltd.
Commissioning of the new SBQ mill is scheduled for the second quarter of 2020.
