German steelmaker Dillinger has upgraded its CC6 continuous caster so that it can produce 600mm thick slabs.
The company approached German plant builder SMS group to carry out the work based on a strong relationship that has existed between the two companies over many years. The new plant was commissioned on 25 July.
SMS has described Dillinger’s new caster as ‘one of a kind’, designed to produce slabs within the 300mm to 600mm thickness range.
The caster’s permanent load holding system, neutral axis technology, and load take-over strategy were particular challenges for SMS, but they were all overcome.
With its new caster in place, claims SMS, Dillinger has ‘set new standards in the heavy plate grade segment’.
In 1961 SMS delivered Dillinger’s first continuous caster and followed up in 1998 with the CC5, which was upgraded in 2010, setting a new world record at the time by producing 450mm thick slabs. In 2015 the record was broken by Dillinger’s CC6 when it produced 500mm slabs and now, of course, the CC6 has done it again.
SMS said that ‘multiple world record holder’ was a great name for Dillinger’s latest caster, adding that the equipment combines a high degree of technological stability, extreme production reliability and huge potential ‘to meet the demands of tomorrow’.