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Process Line Projects |
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Armco Steel Pickle Line
Bethlehem Steel Pickle LIne
UPI #1 ETL Welder Upgrade
UPI #2 Side Trimming Line
UPI #3ETL Improvements
UPI #3 Electrolytic Tinning Line Entry Section
UPI CA Line Automatic Slowdown
UPI KMCAL Line
UPI KMCAL Level 2 Upgrade
Weirton Steel #5 Side Trimming Line
Weirton Steel DCR Mill
Weirton Steel Continuous Annealing Lines |
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Weirton Steel #5 Sidetrimming Line |
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Weirton Steel DCR Mill |
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Weirton Steel contracted Exise to evaluate intermittent problems and low productivity on their #5 Sidetrimmer Line. The equipment involved consists of GE Digital Siltron drives, Series Six PLC, and DMC controller.The initial visit uncovered inadequate drive communication fault detection and a defective communications board in one of the drives, as well as significant sequencing and control concerns. The communications problems were addressed immediately. Subsequent visits were made to simplify and improve the line coordination and control logic to enhance operator acceptance and improve the reliability and operating characteristics of the line. The production personnel are now satisfied with the operation of the line. |
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Exise was commissioned by Weirton Steel to evaluate the operation of the DCR mill in their tin division. The mill operation was analyzed in the areas of control and drive equipment, rolling practices, charging and discharging sequences, and operating tensions. While on-site, Exise made minor regulator adjustments to help reduce tension transients during rolling. These adjustments had an immediate impact on the operation. After the on-site data collection phase, a report was generated making specific recommendations regarding rolling practices, sequencing for improved coil cycle time, gauge control, tune up of regulators, and relocation of operator controls. Weirton Steel is currently in the process of implementing these recommendations. |
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Weirton Steel Continuous Annealing Lines |
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UPI #3 Electrolytic Tinning Line Entry Section |
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Exise was engaged by Weirton Steel to perform a technical audit of the drives and control systems on all three of their continuous annealing lines. The objective of the study was to determine the most cost effective approach for making productivity improvements on all the lines. Improvements will be on four fronts simultaneously: production rate, reliability, yield, and quality. The analysis showed that significant improvements can be obtained at relatively little cost. Weirton has begun to implement improvements. |
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Exise just recently completed the installation and startup of new digital drives and regulators for the entry section of the #3 ETL at UPI. Exise acted as the project engineer and manager, wrote the specifications, evaluated bids, and did the installation engineering. Also, Exise provided all the programming and startup support for the drives and PLC. GE DC-2000 drives were used. The payoff reels were originally under powered. Larger motors were obtained and installed. The new equipment was installed, wired and pre tested with the line running. During a short outage, all the equipment was put into service and a final tune up performed. The line started up on schedule and was back up to full production rate in two days. |
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ARMCO Steel Pickle Line |
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UPI KMCAL Line |
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Exise provided engineering services for the revamp of ARMCO Steel's pickle line at their Mansfield, Ohio facility. Electrical equipment for the line was provided by Entec, Inc. and included Avtron digital drive regulators, Allen Bradley PLC 5's, Control View operator interfaces and Panel View maintenance interfaces.
Exise engineers provided installation guidance during the initial phases of construction and installation. During the startup our engineers were involved with the installation and tune-up of the digital drives, testing of the drive interface and general PLC work. We produced tune-up guidelines for other engineers working on the drives and assisted with the generation of configuration data to match each machine to its process requirements. |
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Exise was commissioned to provide extensive support to the KMCAL for the electrical equipment supplied by Mitsubishi, Reliance and Honeywell. This line had been in production for 2 years but was still operating in manual mode and at only 70% of rated capacity.
In the level 2 area, major improvements were made to automatic line speed control. A line pacing function was added and the furnace models were modified to provide ideal temperature setpoints while maximizing the speed of the line. This work resulted in considerable improvements to quality and yield. Use of auto line speed control went from 0% at project inception to nearly 100% at project completion. |
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Exise worked in the entry area of the line to optimize performance and implement improvements to the control systems. This was accomplished by closer drive coordination, enhanced automation of mill equipment, and more accurate calculation of system control variables.
Modifications by Exise resulted in the identification and elimination of 90% of the line stops and improved entry cycle times so that the entry was no longer a limiting factor on process line speed. Quality was improved by eliminating material creasing that occurred with entry line stops and yield was increased by optimizing the entry control to reduce tail end scrap. |
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After the installation was completed, Exise provided maintenance support, developed maintenance support screens and guidelines and commissioned the Control View operator interface provided for maintenance and troubleshooting. |
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Bethlehem Steel Pickle Line |
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UPI #2 Side Trimming Line |
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Exise recently completed the installation of maximum torque regulators for the tension reels on the #2 Pickle Line at Bethlehem Steel in Burns Harbor Indiana.
These regulators have been implemented using Intel and STD bus hardware supplied by Entec, Inc. for an earlier project. Software for the project is written in C to integrate it with the existing functions. Speed, armature and field current references are all digitally generated and interfaced to an existing analog drive. |
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USS/POSCO engaged Exise to provide a digital auto slowdown system on an existing GE Series 6 at their #2 Side-trimmer. This system provides consistent yield improvements as well as protecting against damage to the uncoiler mandrel resulting from accidental tail-out of the strip. |
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Based on the performance of the auto-slowdown system on Side- trimmer 2, UPI requested the installation of a similar system on their #3 Side-trimmer. This installation included a new GE 90/70 PLC and associated control and has provided similar yield improvements to Side-trimmer 2. |
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The modification from CEMF reels to full torque reels takes full advantage of the reel motor torque at full field. This will enable Bethlehem to increase the maximum gauge run on this line to 0.30" without major mechanical modifications. |
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Exise next installed an auto-width adjust on the #2 Side-trimmer knives that has been praised by production personnel for reducing lost time and yield due to width changes and mis-trim. |
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The existing trimmer knife-adjust motor was retained and coupled to a Reliance AC drive. Using a width measurement device that mounts directly on the knife frames, errors due to gearbox and screw backlash have been eliminated. This has allowed positioning accuracy of 0.01" without any modifications to the mechanical system.
Exise has completed installation of a similar system on the #3 Side Trimmer as well as integrating a pinhole detection system on both lines into the PLCs to provide a printout of the location in the coil where pinholes are detected and the number of pinholes found per 1000 ft. |
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UPI #3ETL Improvements |
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UPI #1 ETL Welder Upgrade |
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Signficant improvements have been made to production on the #3 ETL at UPI with projects that have stabilized speed and tension in the process area and enabled the line to operate continuously at the maximum speed for a given product. Quality and yield figures for #3 ETL are now far better than at any previous time. |
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A turnkey system was provided by Exise to convert the entry welder control on USS-Posco's #1 ETL line from hardwired relays to modern PLC control. The PLC system simplifies modification of the welder sequence for testing and improves identification of welder failures by indicating what limit switch or solenoid is involved. |
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Exise has installed 2 new Avtron digital generator field exciters to replace the magamps on the bridles in the process section. The drag bridle has been configured as a tension regulator using loadcells in the center of the process section. These changes coupled with extensive work to the helper drive regulators have reduced tension transients by 80%. Conductor roll scratches and tracking problems have also been significantly reduced. |
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The PLC installed for the welder control has also been utilized for an auto-slowdown system installed by Exise. This system provides consistent tail ends for improved yields and protection against accidental tail-out. Average accuracy has been within +/-10 feet of setpoint length.
The drive systems for the Tin Free Steel plating cell on ETL 1 were modified by Exise to improve tension control through the high density cell for more consistent and uniform plating. The motor/generator pairings were also modified for better coordination of all the motors associated with the cell. This required significant modifications to the existing magnetic amplifier regulators on the line. |
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Efforts are now being concentrated at the entry of the line. The welder control installed on ETL1 has been integrated into ETL3. Improvements are planned to reduce entry stop times and automate many entry functions. Since the entry is the source of most remaining process tension transients, the regulation scheme is also being reviewed.
Exise also provided training courses for the operators and maintenance personnel on ETL 3. The courses were designed to provide a better understanding of how a process line operates and to prepare everyone for the new equipment being installed. |
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UPI CA Line Automatic Slowdown |
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UPI KMCAL Level 2 Upgrade |
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UPI contracted with Exise to provide a system on the CA line that would detect welds as they approached the exit of the line, initiate exit slowdown and cycle the shear at the proper time to leave the weld on the outer wrap of the coil. This project eliminated yield and time lost from cutting welds out of annealed tin coils. Having the weld on the outer wrap resulted in a yield improvement of over 1%. |
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UPI commissioned Exise to work on the upgrade of the KMCAL computers used for level 2 scheduling, data management, furnace models and temper mill models. The computers were upgraded from Digital Equipment Corporation PDP?s and MicroVAX 2's to the more modern VAX 4000-500A computers. |
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The new computers have disk shadowing which allows the capability of a "hot standby". The man machine interface received major improvements allowing the operators greater flexibility. |
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Exise is also providing UPI with technical assistance as work proceeds to eliminate booster generators, motor operated rheostats and magnetic amplifiers from the line in favor of generator field exciters and PLC control. |
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The furnace computer upgrade from PDP to VAX 4000-500A was completely successful with computer speed improvements eliminating constraints on time critical tasks. The upgrade also made it possible to add additional operator interface and logging tasks, which fulfilled production and maintenance requirements for greater access to data gathered form the process. |
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Serial links were upgraded using ethernet to provide faster data transfer with greater reliability. Supporting code was completely re-written, utilizing the latest DEC layered product software to drive the links. |
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All contents Copyright; 1998-2002 Exise, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
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