China’s Baowu Group entrusted Fives with the design and supply of two reversible cold rolling mills with automatic roll change for production of electric steel at Baoshan and Wuhan production sites.

Baowu has a diversified product portfolio, especially in auto sheet and electrical steel. The production of electrical steel is a top priority for the domestic market for hybrid electric vehicles and ultra-high voltage power transmission.

The cold rolling mill is key to achieve the demanded electric steel properties. Fives will supply two DMS 20Hi EcoMill for grain-oriented (GO) with high permeability (HiB) and non-grain oriented (NGO) electric steel. It will offer a split housing mill for the Baoshan site and a monobloc mill for the Wuhan site.

Thanks to its portfolio of different technologies, Fives is able to offer tailored cold rolling mill solutions to both Baoshan and Wuhan production sites according to their specific operation and maintenance practices. The split housing mill allows for a larger gap between upper and lower work rolls during maintenance and changeover, while the monobloc mill provides better mechanical stability and dimensional properties.

Automatic roll change technology

The project also includes a proprietary breakthrough RollBotTM technology for both mills. RollBotTM is a fully automatic roll change system that performs fast, precise and safe roll change with no manual intervention. This ensures optimal safety and product quality.

“We are greatly honoured by Baowu’s choice which opens another page in our long-standing partnership of more than 30 years. This is a key moment of our strategic collaboration with Baowu, who will continue to lead the steel industry in terms of quality, productivity and new product developments,” says Guillaume Mehlman, President of Steel & Glass Division at Fives.

 

“This project is a significant step in our collaboration, with perfect combination of Baowu’s manufacturing experience and Fives’ know-how in cold rolling mill engineering,” highlights Gabriel Poullet, CEO of Fives DMS, a subsidiary of Fives, specialised in cold rolling mill design and supply. “RollBotTM technology, recently designed by our engineers, is able to automatically replace any type of rolls and avoid any safety risk. We are confident that our technologies will bring a great success to this important project,” he adds.