Vascas in brief

ILAFA CongressAnnouncement of the forthcoming ILAFA congress (Latin American Institute of Iron and Steel) on the 29th to the 31st of October 2006 in Santiago de Chile.

Change in Ownership of SidenorThe company Sidenor has been acquired by Gerdau (40%), Banco de Santander Central Hispano (40%) and various directors of the company (20%).For Gerdau, the entry into Sidenor has a twofold interest: on one hand it means a powerful entry into the special steels sector, and on the other hand it means a leap into the European continent after having expanded throughout the entire American continent.The operation also affects the Brazilian company Aços Villares, in which Sidenor holds a majority shareholding.

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Arcelor takes control of Canadian DofascoAfter a long struggle with ThyssenKrupp, Arcelor has taken control of the Canadian company Dofasco, the largest iron and steelworks company in Canada. This move is forecast to open the doors for them to the American market of car manufacturers.At the same time, Arcelor will benefi t from a certain control of the oscillations in raw material prices, as Dofasco has its own mines. The struggle between ThyssenKrupp and Arcelor has revalued the shares in Dofasco by more than 65% since the end of November.

China to reduce its iron and steel industry activity by more than 10%Excessive production and fears overheating have lead to falls of up to 40% in the prices of certain steel products in China. This has led the Chinese Iron and Steel Association to propose that the Chinese Government set a limit for steel production and new investments in its 11th Five-year Plan.

Indian Government approves new policy to increase steel productionThe policy designed by the Indian Government is based on increasing steel production at an annual rate of 7.5% by reducing bottlenecks in the supply of raw materials and increasing production capacity. At the same time, India is aiming to make its industry as technologically modern as the most advanced of today.

Including this year, we have now been providing our services to the steel industry for 65 years. Looking back, we can see that from the beginning we have been linked to long product rolling. Nowadays you can fi nd Vascas products in several different countries, including both full installations and auxiliary machinery, proving that we have now become a hot rolling classic.

Throughout all of this time we have adjusted our activity to the market and advanced towards a more specialised approach. We are now focussing on processes where the quality of the fi nal product is at stake. We have reached a high technological level but we cannot settle for just this. Strategic sectors, such as car manufacturing, demand a continuous improvement in steel quality. Satisfying that demand is a task that concerns both steel manufacturers and machinery and equipment suppliers. It is a challenge that we must take on together.

For all these reasons, with this fi rst issue of VASCAS Bulletin we inaugurate a new form of communication where we can set out different technological challenges and transmit interesting news and updates.

And so it is our intention that VASCAS Bulletin will be of the utmost use to you and your company and our main purpose: customer service.

65 years at the service of the iron and steel industry

AITOR GARCÍA / Managing Director

Nº 1February 2006

CENTRAL OFFICES

Pol. Leguizamón, C/Zuberoa - nº 9 l 48450 Etxebarri (Bizkaia) SpainTel.: 0034 94 449 21 50 l Fax: 0034 94 440 76 71www.covascas.com l E-mail: covascas@covascas.com

“We evolve together to improve quality”

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Vascas newsVascas technology

C. M. Vascas will hand over a new straightener to the Celsa Group at the end of June this year. The machine, which is capable of straightening bars of between 20 and 100 mm in diameter with an elastic limit of up to 800 N/mm2, is specially designed to optimise roller changing times or automatic roller and guide positioning times.

New straightener for Celsa

Tube grinding installationIn the fi eld of surface cleaning, at the end of January, we added a tube grinding installation. The scope of the contract includes the manufacture, supply, assembly and commissioning of the entire installation.

Special EPR-1 bar straightener recently supplied to a shock absorber manufacturerThe straightening quality demanded by the client was of a maximum defl ection of 0.03 mm on a 100 mm length.The average result obtained during testing has been of 0.00385 mm in 100 mm length.

Cutting with abrasive discs is a cutting process which is emerging as an alternative to the classic metal shearing and stock removal sawing processes.

Shearing causes deformities at cutting ends which leads to losses in material during subsequent mechanical processing as the faulty ends must be eliminated. This also makes the process of marking the extremities for identifi cation purposes at the end of the process more diffi cult, as well as the in process chemical composition analysis on the bars.

On the other hand, cutting using abrasive discs provides smooth surfaces, with a uniform cutting

angle and quality that is maintained throughout the disc’s life. The cuts produced hardly have any burrs, and if they do, the majority of these fall off of their own accord during subsequent processes.

Compared with sawing, abrasive cutting is a good alternative when cutting materials that are diffi cult to saw due to the natural properties of the material itself or its alloys. Noise reduction is

signifi cant, particularly in hot cutting processes and a reduction in cutting time is also achieved, enabling highly competitive cost per cut ratios to be attained.

Abrasive cutting can be carried out in any phase of the production process, regardless of the material’s temperature and, therefore its main use, without ruling out other purposes, is in steel works and long rolled products.

Working temperatures range from room temperature to 1100°C, which can be split into three scales:

— Cold cutting in the range from room temperature to 100 °C

— Hot cutting covering the range from 100°C to 600°C

— Red hot cutting ranging from 600 °C to 1100 °C

The higher the temperature, the more the cutting time is reduced, which makes the process most advisable in the area of the cooling bed exit (or within the cooling bed itself).

Therefore, given the characteristics of and the latest potential of the abrasive disc cutting system, many sheet metal producers may opt for substituting their traditional cutting systems for abrasive disc cutting systems in the near future.

FRANCISCO GONZÁLEZ / Technical Director, C. M. Vascas

Cutting using abrasive discs provides smooth surfaces, with a uniform cutting angle and quality that is maintained throughout the disc’s life

Cutting with abrasive discs

SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE IN LINE WITH MATERIAL TEMPERATURE

20 40 60 80 100 1200 140

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COLD cutting HOT cutting RED HOT cutting

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