Measuring around 700 meters, the mill ranks among Germany’s largest industrial facilities and rolls up to 5 million tons of high-quality steel annually – mainly for automotive applications.
In the hot rolling process, slabs are first heated to around 1,250 °C and then processed into thin steel strip in several rolling stages. A 25-centimeter-thick slab is turned into a strip that is only 1.5 millimeters thick and up to 1.7 kilometers long. The end product – hot-rolled wide strip, wound into coils – forms the foundation for premium grades, especially for the automotive industry and electromobility. In the hot strip mill, the basic product properties are defined by rolling pressure and temperature control, with certain parameters being controlled down to a millionth of a millimeter during the rolling process. Hot Strip Mill 2 has an annual capacity of around 5 million tons and processes widths of up to 2,030 mm and thicknesses of 1.5 up to 25.4 mm.
Recent investments strengthen customer and environmental focus
With the new walking beam furnace, launched in November 2022, slabs are transported particularly gently during energy-efficient heating – ensuring flawless surfaces, ideal for demanding outer skin grades and high-strength multiphase steels. In the future, the furnace can also be operated with hydrogen to reduce CO2 emissions.
The water management system for the cooling process in the hot strip mill was comprehensively modernized in spring this year: thanks to a circulation rate of 97 percent for around 200 million cubic meters of water per year, the plant operates in a resource-efficient manner and ensures maximum process stability. And last but not least, by recovering furnace waste heat to supply hundreds of homes in the Lower Rhine region, Hot Strip Mill 2 combines maximum efficiency and quality with a sustainably designed production process.
