Badische Stahl-Engineering GmbH

In 2018, BSW – the mini-mill of the Badische Group – performed another successful production year. The strategy was to focus on efficiency (lower operation time and reduction of electrode consumption in particular) rather than on total production. Therefore, the annual production of 2,13 million tgb in 2018 was lower than the record of 2,37 million tgb in 2016. But due to continuous process optimisation, many consumption figures reached a new record low, for example the average specific energy consumption at the EAF with 343 kWh/t.

2018 marked also the last year of the continuous casting machine #1 at BSW. Since the start-up in 1968, more than 30 million tons of steel had been casted with the old CCM#1. It is an excellent example for pushing machine life limits by conducting proper maintenance and modernisation projects. The new CCM#1, featuring 6 strands, was installed during the winter shutdown 2018/2019. While only the key components were supplied from OEMs, BSW was responsible for complete engineering, manufacturing of the surrounding equipment and coordination of the erection works. The successful start-up took place on February 11.

BSE explores new ways of improved design of arc furnace high-current systems:
To date the design of arc furnace high-current systems – especially current conducting electrode arms and transformer bus tubes – is mainly based on experience and very basic electrical calculations. With the Finite Network Methode (FNM) BSE presents an innovative method for the optimization of the high current system of electric arc furnaces by high accuracy computation of all electromagnetic effects.

The BSE MultiROB was upgraded with two new functions in cooperation with BSW.

• Automatic tool exchange
• Automatic furnace inspection with camera

The fully automatic tool exchange enables the flexible usage of one lance with TempSamp function during power-on time and one lance with a thermal camera for furnace inspection during tapping. Both functions have contributed to a further increase of safety for BSW operators.