Tag Archives: Rolling Mill

Société Carolorégienne de Laminage

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Hot Strip Mill Aperam
CARLAM (Société Carolorégienne de Laminage), the wide hot strip rolling mill in Chatelet, Belgium was built in 1976 on the banks of the Sambre river by the Hainaut-Sambre steel company.
It became the third wide hot strip mill in Belgium (besides Espérance-Longdoz’ Chertal site and Sidmar in Ghent).

The mill was supplied with slabs from Hainaut’s BOF shop (built in 1971) in nearby Montignies.
In 1980 Hainaut-Sambre merged with the Thy-Marcinelle steel company located in another suburb of Charleroi to become the largest steel producer in the Sambre valley.
Only one year later Hainaut-Sambre joined the Cockerill company from Liege, Belgium to form Cockerill-Sambre.
In 1982 a second walking beam furnace and a sixth finishing stand was installed at Carlam.
The blast furnaces and the BOF steel making in Montignies were closed in 1985. Slabs were provided by Cockerill Sambe’s OBM steel plant in Marcinelle (built in 1976) from now on.
A seventh finishing stand was commissioned at Carlam in 1989.
Cockerill-Sambre became part of Arcelor in 2002.
After the integrated steel production at Marcinelle was sold to the DUFERCO steel group in 2004 (now called CARSID) a new stainless steel melt shop was built in 2004 in Chatelet next to the Carlam rolling mill.
Carlam was renamed Carinox and became part of Arcelor’s stainless steel branch Ugine & ALZ.
The stainless branch of ArcelorMittal (who merged in 2007) was spinned off under the new name Aperam in 2010.
The newly installed 160 tons electric arc furnace is one of the largest in Europe. It supplies raw steel to a 180 ton AOD converter for the transformation to stainless steel.
The steel is then casted into slabs weighing 30 tons each.
The wide hot strip mill processes slabs both from Chatelet and the second Aperam melt shop in Genk, Belgium.
More images at Stahlseite.

The First Mini Mill

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Badische Stahlwerke Electric Arc furnace

in Germany was  Badische Stahlwerke in Kehl  founded in 1968 by  industrial pioneer Willy Korf. The mill was built next to Korf’s already existing bar rolling mill on the banks of the river Rhein.
Only one year later Korf founded another steel mill in Hamburg (Hamburger Stahlwerke) and the first U.S. Mini Mill in Georgetown, S.C.

Willy Korf died in an airplane crash in 1980 and soon after his first mill went bancrupt. The Seizinger und Weizmann families took over in 1984 and made the mill into one of the most efficient steel mills worldwide.
With it’s yearly output of more than 2 mio. tons of steel it is hardly a mini mill anymore.
Today BSW runs two 100 ton electric arc furnaces, two continuous casters and a bar- and wire rolling mill.

More images at Stahlseite.

Huta Krolewska

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Blooming Mill

The Huta Kroleweska in Chorzow, Poland was founded in 1797 and started the production of pig iron in 1802. It was named “Königshütte” in honour of the Prussian King.
In 1843 a puddling steel mill and the first rail mill went into production.
Until 1860 four blast furnaces and a coke plant were built.
In 1872 the German painter Adolph Menzel visited the works to create his famous painting “Eisenwalzwerk (moderne Cyclopen)”

adolph menzel eisenwalzwerk

An open hearth melt shop was installed in 1880 and a Bessemer plant was added in 1895. By 1909 the Puddling and Bessemer mills were closed and in 1912 a Thomas converter melt shop was comissioned.
Under Polish administration the plant was renamed “Huta Pilsudski” in 1935. During the German occupation the mill was called Königshütte again and after the war the name of “Huta Kosciuszko” was used.
In 1949 the DEMAG medium and light sections rolling mill was installed.
In the 1950ies new blast furnaces and coke oven batteries were built.
More than 8000 people were employed.
Steel production ceased in 1978, the coke plant was closed in 1982 and the last blast furnace was blown out in 1991. In 1992 the wire rolling mill was closed down.
In 1994 a new walking beam furnace was installed for the heavy sections rolling mill.
In 1997 the light and medium sections mill was modernized.
The Huta Kosciuszko became a shareholders company in 1998.
In 2007 the ArcelorMittal steel company takes over the mill under the name “Huta Krolewska” (Germ., Königshütte).
Huta Krolewska today runs a heavy sections rolling mill mostly for rails and a light and medium sections mill.
Raw materials are provided by the Huta Katowice in Dabrowa Gornica.
Further images at stahlseite.de.
Video done by a french film maker in the 1980ies.

The Smallest Hot Rolling Mill In Germany

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The Idealspaten-Bredt company was founded in 1899 by Emil Eckardt under the name „Schaufel- und Spatenfabrik Eckardt & Co“ in Herdecke, Germany.
Built next to the railroad line from Hagen to Dortmund the new company was spezialized in the production of spades and shovels.The company’s speciality, until today, is the Idealspaten. A spade whose blade is hot rolled of one piece of steel.
In 1925 a new rolling mill was built which is still in use today.
In 1928 the company went bancrupt and changed it’s name to “Idealspaten- und Schaufelwalzwerke vorm. Eckardt & Co., G.m.b.H., Herdecke“.
In the 1930ies and during the second world war the rolling mill produced vast numbers of spades and shovels for the Reichsarbeitsdienst and the German Army. More than 500 people worked for the Idealspaten company.
In 1939 the „Teplitzer Eisenwerke, Schaufel- und Zeugwaren-Fabrik AG“, formerly owned by a Jewish family, in the Czech Republic was taken over.
In 1971 Idealspaten fusioned with its competitor from nearby Witten to form the “Idealspaten- und Schaufelwalzwerke A. Bredt GmbH & Co. KG”, the last industrial producer of spades and shovels in Germany. Further images

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Steelton rail rolling mill

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steelton bar mill

The Steelton plant was founded in 1867 by the Pennsylvania Steel Corp.. It was the first mill in the U.S. built exclusivly for the production of steel.Main product were steel rails already.
Three blast furnaces and a Bessemer mill were erected along the Susquehanna river in the late 19th century
In 1917 the mill was taken over by Charles Schwab’s Bethlehem Steel Corp.
The blast furnaces were closed for good in 1960.Steel was produced now by remelting scrap in open hearth furnaces only.
The open hearth furnaces were replaced by electric arc furnaces in 1968.A continuous caster was installed in 1983.
In 2001 the Bethlehem Steel Corporation went bankrupt and was taken over by ISG which later became part of ArcelorMittal.
Today ArcelorMittal operates a 150 ton electric arc furnace, a continuous bloom caster, a 44” blooming mill, a 20” bar mill, and the 38-25” rail mill at Steelton. Large scale ingot teeming  is still done also.
Steelton is one of only three remaining rail producers in U.S. today.

More images here.

Survivor

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Hosch Schwerter Profile Walzwerk

The Hoesch AG based in Dortmund once gave work to 64000 men and women, controlling dozens of subsidiaries. Few members of this steel empire have survived. One of them is the Hoesch Schwerter Profile GmbH.

The steel mill in Schwerte, Germany was founded by the Kissing & Schmöle company from nearby  Menden in 1868 next to the brand new railroad line going from Hagen to Unna.
A melt shop and 5 rolling mills were built.
The Johanneshütte near Siegen, running two blast furnaces, was acquired in 1871 and supplied iron until 1914.
In 1891 the mill was expanded by an open hearth shop, a blooming mill and a wire mill.
In 1926 the steel plant became part of the Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG and was renamed Schwerter Profileisenwalzwerke AG in 1936.
After the war Schwerte became part of the Dortmund-Hörder Hüttenunion (DHHU).
The stamping mill was built in 1957 and from 1962 the new rolling mill no.7 replaced all older mills.
After the fusion of DHHU and Hoesch in 1966 Schwerte joined the Hoesch rolling mills in Hohenlimburg to form the Hoesch Werke Hohenlimburg Schwerte AG.

Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG ; Schwerter Profileisenwalzwerke

The takeover of Hoesch by Krupp in 1992 made the works part of  Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, and in 1999 of the ThyssenKrupp AG.
In 2005 the Calvi holding from Italy purchased the Schwerte plant, now called Hoesch Schwerter Profile GmbH, producing 70000 tons of special profiles per year and employing a staff of 530.

Further images.