Sidenor Basauri, Spain, trusts in SMS group also for the stage-2 upgrade of its walking beam furnace, which will increase the furnace’s capacity from currently 85 tons per hour to 130 tons per hour. Supplied by SMS group in 2016, the furnace was originally designed with the provision for a future capacity increase. In the design phase, the SMS engineers had already taken into consideration all civil and mechanical modifications required for the future capacity boost in order to guarantee a short plant shut down and a fast restart. The second start-up after the upgrade is scheduled for the second half of 2020.

The furnace can reheat special steel blooms in sections between 185 and 240 millimeters square. Its state-of-the-art technology will ensure low levels of fuel consumption, scale formation and decarburization also after the modification, helping Sidenor to consolidate its benchmark position in SBQ production. SMS group’s range of supply for the upgrade will include new steel structures with a set of SMS ZeroFlame extra-low NOx burners, which had already been included in stage 1 providing pollutant emissions of less than 100 mg/Nm3 at 1,250 °C, meeting the most stringent of European guidelines.

Since 1997, SMS group has installed 90 reheating furnaces for billets, blooms, slabs and pipes.