PRESS RELEASE

Phone: +49 211 881 4449

E-mail: thilo.sagermann@sms-group.com

Thilo Sagermann

Düsseldorf, June 14, 2018

Yongfeng orders two five-strand billet casters fordirect rolling from SMSConcast

Yongfeng Group Ltd. invests in casting technology forthe production of demanding SBQ steel grades

Contract signing between Shao Changtao, General Manager,Yongfeng Group Ltd., and Pierpaolo Rivetti, Deputy ExecutiveVice President Sales & Marketing, SMS Concast.

Shandong Laigang Yongfeng Steel Corporation(Yongfeng), based in Dezhou, China, is a subsidiary ofYongfeng Group Ltd. In February 2018, Yongfeng  ?  asa private company  ?  placed an order for twocontinuous casting machines with SMS Concast AG, a

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company of SMS group.

The two continuous casters are part of a project aimedat the expansion of the existing plant, where a new,electric arc furnace based minimill of state-of-the-arttechnology is going to replace the existing productionfacilities. The new plant will produce 870,000 tons peryear of a large variety of demanding high-quality SBQsteel grades, including bearing steel which will be caston continuous caster No. 1. Continuous caster No. 2 willbe used for rebar grades and is aimed to cast 1,000,000tons per year. The 165 millimeters square billetsproduced will be processed into bars and wire rod in thenew rolling mill, which will also be supplied by SMSgroup.

The special design of the two continuous castersprovides great flexibility for production planning whilereaching very high strand productivity of around 750kilograms per minute by means of the proven SMSConcast-developed INVEX® mold. Due to its specialtube geometry and enhanced water cooling features,the mold provides more efficient heat transfer andhence more uniform solidification at the faces and in thecorner areas. The thus maximized cooling symmetryprovides for higher casting speeds and the possibility ofdirect rolling of rebar grades, which need to have asuitable temperature at the hot charge roller table.

The machine design has been developed in closecooperation with the customer and the local designinstitute. By sharing experience and precisely definedrequirements, the design of the continuous castingmachines will be specifically tailored to the customer’sneeds, making use of SMS Concast’s comprehensiveknowhow and wide product range.

CONDRIVE is one of the special products incorporatedinto the new caster design. This latest in electricoscillation drive design provides the full functionality ofmold oscillation without the drawbacks of a hydraulicsystem in terms of maintenance and piping. Itsinnovative torque drive enables the amplitude,frequency and oscillation profile to be adjusted onlineand independently from one another. Oscillationparameters are no longer a compromise because each

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casting section and grade will have their own oscillationparameters optimally tuned to achieve best surfacequality.

Other special features have been implemented toincrease the safety, productivity and efficiency of themachines: a cartridge-type mold assembly for highermachine availability; to reduce downtimes, switchingbetween full water and air-mist cooling for freelyselectable zones is performed in a matter of seconds forenhanced machine durability. These are just a fewexamples of the carefully implemented project principlesbased on which the machines have been designed.

Stand-by, redundancy and safety were the keywordsleading to the continuous casters’ mechanical andautomation design. Filters, double emergency motors,control valves for media, hydraulic pumps, cold stand-byservers and UPS are the main areas where theseprinciples have been applied.

Fully integrated PLC for fully automatic operation of theentire plant and the SMS Concast process controlsystem (level 2) integrate the process controlphilosophy, production strategy and metallurgicalmodels.

In addition to the level 2 system, a software developedby SMS Concast (COOL) has been implemented. Thissoftware dynamically controls all the casting parametersand the secondary cooling process on the basis of adedicated software model. Thus, with a premiummechanical design in place, the most stringent qualityrequirements can be complied with even for the mostdemanding steel grades.

The Chinese market has been moving towards evermore challenging steel grades and more efficientproduction. SMS Concast provides Yongfeng the righttools to be a cost winner in commodity steel productionand acquire a top-notch position in the SBQ high-valueadded segment.

SMS group is a group of companies internationally active in plant constructionand mechanical engineering for the steel and nonferrous metals industry. Ithas some 13,500 employees who generate worldwide sales of more than EUR3 billion. The sole owner of the holding company SMS GmbH is the Familie

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Weiss Foundation.

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