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July 2006 — Baoshan Iron and Steel, China, has contracted LOI to supply Line No. 2 and Line No. 3 for its existing heavy-plate heat treatment facility. Originally installed by LOI, the facility has been operated successfully since the beginning of 2005.

LOI’s scope of supply includes one roller hearth furnace for normalizing, and one roller hearth furnace for tempering. The furnaces will be used to heat treat alloyed carbon steel and high-alloy steel plates. The plates will have thicknesses ranging from 5 to 200 mm, widths from 900 to 4,800 mm and lengths from 3,000 to 26,000 mm. Plates produced on the new lines will be utilized in the construction industry and for ship-building and boiler-making.

In the radiant-tube-heated furnace Line No. 2, the plates will be normalized in a protective controlled atmosphere. In the open-fired furnace Line No. 3, they can be tempered by the lowest temperatures with the highest precision. Depending on the type of heat treatment used, the furnaces will be capable of reaching capacities as high as 64 tonnes per hour.

The LOI plant, including the heating systems, will be highly automated and the control system is to feature a material tracking program. An optimization computer will adapt the furnace to the various load conditions, minimizing energy consumption, environmental impact, and ensuring minimum scale formation for the highest surface qualities.

The new furnace lines, which are the second expansion stage of the plant, are to be commissioned at the beginning of 2007.

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