At the tandem mill, TDM for short, and the universal medium section mill, UMIT for short, the technological control system (TCS) was to be modernized.
The existing automation system broadly consisted of:
Special Challenge:
Due to the very high utilization of the plant, the modernization could only be carried out within a maintenance shutdown of about three weeks. The tight schedule could not be prolonged under any circumstances to avoid jeopardizing the planned resumption of production.
This required optimal preparation for the planned conversion as well as close coordination of the individual trades during the installation and commissioning phase.
Peiner Träger GmbH is one of the most successful European steel companies, offering a comprehensive full range of beam and column profiles made of steel in all grades. Since 1996, the company has been producing via the low-emission electric arc furnace route with 100% scrap recycling and has been offering low-CO₂ SALCOS structural steel with emissions of only 366 kg CO₂e per ton since 2023.
The total production capacity is approximately 1 million tons of steel per year.
The technological control system (TCS) was installed and commissioned in 2009 with the conversion from a continuous mill to a tandem mill by SMS and Eckelmann.
In 2018, Peiner Träger decided to modernize the existing automation solution with Eckelmann AG.
The Eckelmann team took on the following tasks for the project:
Perfect performance within a tight schedule: Due to the very high utilization of the plant, the Eckelmann team modernized the technological control system (TCS) at the universal medium section mill within a maintenance shutdown of only three weeks.
The TCS (Technological Control System) was already redundantly configured to switch quickly to the backup system in case of a failure.
To this end, the backup system was designed as a cold standby system.
The existing IPCs were replaced by significantly smaller, compact, and industrial-grade Box PCs by Eckelmann.
Previously, discrete cabling from the main cabinet to the rolling stands provided the connection to the actuators/sensors; since the modernization, this has been done via new control boxes mounted on the rolling stands. These include Siemens ET 200 SP Profinet modules connected via fiber optics, which then control or read out actuators and sensors via short cables.
The modernization by Eckelmann brought another innovation: As requested by the customer, there is now one Box PC in continuous operation, a second in cold standby, and an additional third serving as a development station.
On this computer, the E°ProBAS development environment was installed, running on Windows 10. This solution replaces a desktop PC as a development computer, and the customer gets a second full-fledged cold standby system by simply swapping the hard drive.
Eckelmann supplied and installed 6 stainless steel control boxes on the rolling stands.
“We commissioned Eckelmann AG in 2018 to modernize our technological control system at our tandem rolling mill. We are very satisfied with the implementation of the task and the project results and expressly thank them for the very good and professional cooperation.”
Igor Oskroban
Head of department Technological Control Systems
Email: i.oskroban@eckelmann.de