WCA September 2017

Technology news

Annealer for flat stainless steel wires and profiles

PLASMAIT GmbH from Austria is seeing an increasing demand for its high-output plasma heat treatment lines for stainless steel products. The next deployment of its PlasmaAnnealer will take place at wire Southeast Asia. Plasmait sold a 30kW plasma annealer to a renowned stainless steel wire producer, who wants to replace its traditional tube furnace for production of flat ferritic and austenitic product with widths up to 30mm. The HPA30 plasma annealer with output capacity of 100kg per hour will allow the manufacturer to halve the energy cost per kilogram of output whilst allowing for a considerable cost saving in terms of peak power consumption. Much lower power connection requirements of the plasma annealer also means cheaper cabling installation for connecting power. The new, compact, single-line production will have the same output as the old multi-line furnace and will take about one third of the shop floor space. Single-line production will also reduce material manipulation and limit the investment into the associated Wire rod rust is no longer an alarming phenomenon, since the introduction of the Smooth-Brush (SB) wire rod green and dry cleaning system. Installed in-line after a simple rod reverse bending descaler, the SB system removes excess rod scale and rust, converting over 95 per cent of rod scale into useful micro-abrading pads, providing efficiency and simplicity in rod dry cleaning applications, H/C and L/C, including 0.98% C. Continuously liberated rod scale provides, in-line, an extremely receptive about 5-micron size texture enabling powder lubricant to be chemically and mechanically interlocked to the rod surface, forming

take-ups, payoffs and transport system. A typical plasma annealer installation for stainless steel applications can substitute around ten traditional lines on a conventional strand furnace. PlasmaAnnealer allows accurate heat input and hence more uniform recrystallisation, which is reflected in homogeneous grain size in the longitudinal and transversal direction. The HPA30 annealer also features an extended tempering zone to allow for ❍ The PlasmaAnnealer HPA60 from Plasmait

extended dwell time or slow cooling, which is necessary for selected ferritic grades of stainless steel. Processed material does not touch the plasma chamber when at high temperature, which reduces the risk of surface scratching. This is different to the conventional strand furnace where tubes remain in contact with the furnace guiding supports during the maximum elevated temperatures.

Plasmait GmbH – Austria Website : www.plasmait.com

Rod rust removal – dry, green and clean

bare rod, at virtually zero energy consumption and zero maintenance cost, in a totally green and dry application. The SB rod cleaning is used in demanding wire drawing applications, including spring wire, plating wire, galvanised wire, PC strand wire, Al clad wire, cold-heading wire, CO 2 welding wire, etc. The SB dry cleaning system replaces costly operations in wire rod cleaning processes, (including acid and other aggressive wet chemicals), generating substantial cost savings, environmental benefits and improvement of productivity. Decalub – France Website : www.decalub.com

a hard and consistent anti-wear and anti-friction conversion coating that is found to perform comparably to or better than zinc phosphate. This achieves in-line direct drawing from mechanically descaled uncoated ❍ Rod and wire cleaning by SB brushing system

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Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2017

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