On a plate

Chinese steel producer Ningbo Iron and Steel Company (Ningbo) has awarded

a contract to engineer and supply the drive and automation systems for a new plate mill.

Commissioning of the rolling mill is scheduled for completion by the end of 2009.

Ningbo, located in Zhejiang province, is currently building a new plate mill for manufacturing metal plates with widths of up to 4.3m. The products are mainly intended for use in shipbuilding.

With an annual capacity of 1.6 million metric tons of plate metal, the new plant will incorporate two walking-beam furnaces, a two-stand rolling mill, a hot-plate leveller, cooling beds, a shearing section and a finishing shop.

Siemens will be responsible for engineering, plus the supply of drives and automation for the rolling mill. Siemens’ scope of supply also includes all the process models of the rolling mill and the hot leveller, the entire automation and instrumentation, as well as a material-tracking system from the furnace discharge down to the shearing section.

Sinamics SM150 DC link converters will power the main motors of the mill.