The Riva Group has become the first steel producer to use the Siemens LiquiRob technology at an electric arc furnace. The robot system—designed for fully automatic operation and precise and reliable measurements at frequent intervals—has been installed in its French plant in Neuves-Maisons where it handles sampling and temperature and Celox measurements. The acceptance certificate was issued mid-March.
The Neuves-Maisons works produces rebars and coils, and belongs to the SAM Division of the Riva Group, based in Milan, Italy. The plant produces steel in an EAF with a tapping weight of 150 tonnes and a ladle furnace. The steel is cast on a six-strand sequential billet casting plant, from which the billets pass to a rolling mill for further processing.
Until recently, the operating personnel had to enter the dog house to take samples and measure the temperature and oxygen activity of the liquid steel using a manipulator. These activities are now handled by the LiquiRob System, which accesses the steel bath directly through a window in the slag door. The robot system is operated and monitored from a central control room.
Siemens was responsible for integrating the LiquiRob System into the existing dog house and the EAF automation system, as well as for commissioning and training the operating personnel.
The solution implemented in Neuves-Maisons also includes installation of three automated magazines to store the sample and measuring, which can be safely filled by the operating personnel one time per day outside the dog house. The sampling and measuring procedures can be run automatically.
LiquiRob offers advantages over the use of manipulators, such as it requires only a small window in the slag door and the cartridge reaches further into the furnace and dives deeper into the steel bath. Siemens notes that shorter measuring intervals can also be achieved due to the automated cartridge selection, which provides a more precise picture of the temperature and composition of the steel.
Siemens developed LiquiRob to improve industrial safety and the quality of measurements under the harsh operating conditions encountered in the iron and steel industry. The system was implemented for the first time in 2008 in the Gwangyang Steel Works of the Korean company Posco.
