ARCA-Regler GmbH (Tönisvorst, Germany) has delivered to an international engineering company for the steel industry a large quantity of three-way control valves. The ultimate buyer for the valves is situated in the city of Maanshan in Anhui, one of the eastern provinces of China. The Chinese company has so far produced mainly long steel products and has now placed an order with a consortium to build a warm band production line.
Three-way valves as part of a compact strip production line (CSP) belong to the field of compact cooling. They have particularly been developed for fast cooling cycles and guarantee the exact emission of the required cooling water quantity. ARCA is experienced in the use and design of three-way valves and has delivered valves also for large flow quantities in nominal diameters up to 400 mm and high pressures PN 64-160. Instead of two globe-type valves a single three-way valve offers a mixing or dividing function for a better price.
The design and equipment of the Maanshan plant corresponds with the newest technology and can therefore be counted to a new generation of compact strip production plants. All major casting and rolling developments have been taken into consideration. Special features of the plants are the rolling of particularly thin warm band up to a minimum of 0,8 mm, the ferritic and the semi endless rolling. The rolling of extremely thin warm bands has only become possible through the compact strip process. Developments in the machine technology as well as in the measuring, operating and controlling systems were essential for this improvement. ARCA for this purpose developed new controlling concepts and equipped its control valves with intelligent systems, that guarantee an optimum adjustment of the valves to the process. The new compact strip production line will mainly produce bands for the processing in a cold rolling mill. The first coil will be produced in October 2003.
