Advanced automation at Gerdau Pindamonhangaba improves special steel billets and heavy bar cooling

For over a decade, the Gerdau specialized steel plant located in Pindamonhangaba, São Paulo, Brazil and Russula have collaborated to implement productivity improvement projects. Today, the team collaborates again to automate the cooling bed, which will improve the temperature cooling of the special steel billets and heavy bars for Rolling Mill #1.

Cooling beds carefully cross transfer and cool hot rolled bars after the hot rolling process. The scope of the revamp is from the roller table entry side to the discharging area of the cooling bed. The existing manual temperature control will be substituted with an advanced automation solution to improve plant safety and product quality. 

Scope of Supply:

Russula will supply a Siemens Simatic S7-1500 PLC, four Sinamics G120 AC drives, a completely new WinCC HMI system with touch screen monitors, hardware and software engineering, installation supervision and commissioning support. The existing mechanically coupled motors controlling the cooling bed, will be replaced with new AC electrically synchronized motors.

• Low voltage AC single drives
• Sinamics G120 AC drives
• S7-1500 PLC
• Simatic ET 200SP I/O
• Operator and engineering stations
• WinCC HIMI System
• Software and HMI engineering
• Installation advisement
• Commissioning support
• Training

Benefits:

With the new advanced automation provided by Russula, the production team at Gerdau will be able to control the cooling bed speed according to the cooling rate required for each product such that the bars will be discharged at the ideal temperature, minimizing distortion. Thermographic cameras installed along the cooling bed will provide continual bar temperature input to the PLC. Double row bar positioning will also be implemented, allowing the movement of each side of the table independently.

Timing:

The new drives and PLC will be assembled in cabinets with Profinet communication in the Russula workshop in A Coruña Spain.  After undergoing a FAT test there, the equipment will be shipped to the Pindamonhangaba plant, and the automated cooling control will go into operation a month later. This project highlights Gerdau’s trust in Russula’s productivity improvement solutions.