Arlenico, a special quality wire rod producer located near Lecco Lake, Lombardy, Italy, put the new four-stand MEERdrivePLUS sizing block supplied by SMS group into operation in the existing Caleotto wire rod line.
Arlenico is now able to serve the market with products of much tighter tolerances than produced ever before. Thanks to the technologies supplied by SMS group, including a high-tech water cooling line of the latest design and the level 2 automation system, the company can now also apply thermomechanical rolling.
The MEERdrive®PLUS sizing block in operation. Image: SMS group
In December, Arlenico officially issued the preliminary acceptance certificate, followed by performance tests on the production of wire rod in diameters from 5.5 up to 27 millimetres in several steel grades at the maximum speed of 115 metres per second, and at low temperature of 750°C during the following months. Since the first rolling trials, the tolerances as low as 0.05 millimetres and 50% ovality have been fully met on 5.5 millimetre diameter product.
MEERdrivePLUS is a variant of the MEERdrive technology, a revolutionary drive concept for modern wire rod production. It uses individual drives with small low-voltage motors for each stand. Since all finished sizes are rolled in the MEERdrivePLUS block, it is possible to realise "one-family rolling" in the rolling mill reducing the otherwise required mill downtimes for size and ring changing.
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