Background
AMAG rolling GmbH (AMAG), based in Austria, is a leading supplier of premium aluminium flat rolled products for industries such as aircraft, automotive, sports equipment, lighting, construction and packaging.
In 2012, AMAG selected Danieli to design, manufacture and install a new aluminium hot rolling mill and auxiliary equipment. This mill would process products ranging from medium thickness plates to thin-strip coils, and alloys ranging from series 1xxx to 8xxx.
The first plate from the new hot rolling mill was successfully rolled in September 2014, ahead of the contractual milestone. AMAG signed the Final Acceptance Certificate in October 2015. To date, the mill has achieved all its quality performance targets, which are over and above the contractual requirements.
As with all new mill projects from Danieli, we were involved from the start and contributed to the project’s success. Danieli is unique in being able to offer, not only the equipment, but also support from recognised aluminium product and process experts.
How we were involved
Our involvement started during the sales phase. Because we have a deep understanding of the customer’s products, we knew exactly what they wanted to achieve with their new mill and how this could be translated into the design concept. We were part of Danieli’s design process from the very beginning using, for example, the Innoval Spray Impact Model to design optimum emulsion flow and roll cooling, and the Innoval Stack Deflection Model to understand how the mill would behave under load. This enabled us to determine the ground cambers on the rolls to obtain the correct product qualities in terms of profile and flatness.
Once the hot rolling mill and its auxiliary equipment had been installed and the cold commissioning completed by the Danieli team, we were on hand to assist with the start-up. Working with the AMAG engineers, together we manually created pass schedules for every piece rolled with the automation running along side. The automation was then brought on-line to deliver full capability and stability.
Innoval’s process engineers were present almost continuously to assist in ensuring the mill achieved the desired levels of performance in terms of dimensional tolerances, profile, speed, temperature, surface quality and process timings. We also worked with the AMAG engineers and the operators in close cooperation to update the existing hot mill operating practices so that they were optimised for the new equipment.
Outcome
The first slab was produced ten days early, and a large proportion of the material produced during the commissioning process was saleable. Thanks to these excellent results, AMAG has decided to continue working with Danieli by awarding another order for a completely new slitting and coil preparation line.
Services Involved
- Process Improvement
- Process Models
- Rolling
This case study appears as an article in the 2016 edition of ‘innform’; the newsletter of Innoval Technology.
