Removing scale from the surface of wire rod before it is drawn is an important operation that affects the

structure, mechanical characteristics, and commercial properties of the rod. The West Siberian Metallurgical

Combine has worked with the Russian-Bulgarian consortium Ékomet to develop and introduce integrated

lines WCM-05 and SCM-07 (for coiled rod) and SCM-02 (for uncoiled rod) to mechanically remove scale.

The lines have several advantages over similar existing equipment: they can be installed directly in line with

the draw bench; the scale can be removed by a combination of several methods; the installation costs are

lower than for comparable facilities.

Steel and rolled-products manufacturing – the division added most recently to the West Siberian Metallurgical

Combine (ZSMK) – was started in 1996 by combining two other operations: hardware and consumer goods production. This

change was borne of both technological and commercial necessity – the raw materials needed to make many of the consumer

products were hardware items.

The story behind the establishment of the hardware division at the ZSMK dates from the middle of the 1970s, when

the management of the combine decided to add buildings for a fourth division. The first foundation pile was driven on February

23, 1978, and on April 22, 1980 the combine formally approved the technology after testing and obtained the first product –

wire. Two months later (on June 30, 1980), after refining the different operations in the production process and running in the

equipment, the combine received formal approval from the State Commission for the startup of the first stage of the facility. It

had a design capacity of 175,000 tons of wire a year. The second stage, with an additional annual capacity of 75000 tons of

wire, came on line four months later. Since the ZSMK was oriented toward the production of structural steels, the combine

added grades suitable for the production of different wire-type products: general-purpose wire steel; steel for reinforced con-

crete structures; low-carbon welding wire for cold upsetting, used to make fasteners for automobile and tractor production.

However, the remote geographic location of the combine and the strong and stable demand for alloyed welding wire

compelled the combine to make arrangements for its production. In connection with this, in November 1982 the combine

began operation of the third stage of the hardware division and thus became able to produce an additional 25000 tons of

alloyed welding wire a year. The total capacity of the hardware division reached 275,000 tons of wire a year by the begin-

ning of 1983, i.e., the combine became the largest manufacturer of this product from the Ural to Kamchatka.

The ZSMK began making consumer goods in 1982, when it produced its first five tons of building nails. In 1983, it

created a section that within a year became the consumer goods shop. The production of building nails reached 15000 tons/yr

by the beginning of 2004.

The electric-welded pipe shop started operation in June 1995 and produced its first product – pipes for water and

gas lines. Among the distinctive features of the technology used by the shop to make welded pipes are the high quality of

Metallurgist, Vol. 48, Nos. 5–6, 2004

STEELMAKING AND ROLLING AT THE WEST

SIBERIAN METALLURGICAL COMBINE

B. M. Leboshkin, V. P. Mushtei,V. N. Shadrin, V. A. Startsev,and M. N. Yuzhakov

West Siberian Metallurgical Combine. Translated from Metallurg, No. 6, pp. 54–55, June, 2004.

0026-0894/04/0506-0269©2004 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 269

the welds and the fact that the semifinished products used to make the pipes can be not only round, but also square, rectan-

gular, or oval. Tests show that the welded pipes are the equal of seamless pipes in terms of their mechanical properties. The

volume of production of water and gas line pipe reached 20000 tons/yr by the beginning of 2004.

In 1999,the steelmaking-rolling division created a section to make welding electrodes. The section was reorganized

into a welding electrode shop in 2001,and by the beginning of 2004 its output had reached 3000 tons/yr.

The steelmaking-rolling division (SRD) currently includes four main shops:wire and hardware shop (WHS); con-

sumer goods shop (CGS); welded pipe shop (WPS); welding electrodes shop (WES). The division also includes two aux-

iliary shops – the tools and fittings shop (TFS) and technical services (TS).

The SRD is one of the most complex divisions at the combine in the technological sense. To make the wide range

of goods they produce, the shops of the division perform the operations of drawing and sizing metal,welding pipes,machin-

ing, woodworking, and laser cutting.

The system implemented to control product quality in the division is based on the requirements of international stan-

dard ISO 9002-87 and has been certif ied by the quality-control association SovAsK and the English company Lloyd. The

system has also been listed in the Russian Riverine Registry for the production of electrodes and welding wire, and it has

been certif ied as satisfying the requirements of the Russian Maritime Shipping Registry for the production of welding wire.

The products covered by the system have been well-received at Russian and regional exhibits, trade shows,and competitions.

One promising development in the division is the production of wire from wire rod subjected to mechanical scale

removal. The traditional technology, involving pickling the steel in solutions of hydrochloric or sulfuric acid, ensures good

protection from corrosion but also creates serious problems – including pollution of the environment by emissions of acid

vapors. The technology also requires space to store spent acid solutions,entails losses of metal together with the scale, and

reduces the ductility of the product due to its saturation with hydrogen during the pickling operation. None of the hardware

factories in Russia or the other countries of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) has as yet introduced alternative

acid-free methods that eliminate many of the above problems.

In 1992, the combine became the first plant in Russia to introduce a mechanical method for removing scale.

Working together with the Russian-Bulgarian consortium Ékomet,the combine developed a fundamentally new technology

and equipment for this purpose – integrated lines WCM-05 and SCM-07 (for coiled rod) and SCM-02 (for uncoiled rod). The

coil-handling lines mechanize the uncoiling operation, and both lines have mechanisms that deliver the semifinished product

to the work station, clean its surface, aspirate the dust that is formed, and collect spilled scale. Among the advantages that

the new equipment has over existing facilities is that it can be installed directly in the production line with the draw bench-

es,it provides for combination scale removal by several methods,and it has lower capital costs.

Wire rod is fed into the WCM-05 line through an uncoiler by the tractive force exerted by the first drum of the draw

bench. The rod is cleaned by its repeated alternating bending in rollers and by shot-peening of its surface with steel shot.

The equipment includes the following components:a block of rollers,a rotating chamber with steel shot,an ejector, an aspi-

rator, a blower, and a sound suppressor.

The SCM-07 line cleans the semifinished product by the combined action of repeated bending in hard-alloy rollers

and shock loading in the elastic range by a set of rotating disks.

Successful introduction of the technology for acid-free cleaning of wire rod required solution of the following prob-

lems: the development of requirements on the properties of the wire rod; study of the effect that deformation of the rod dur-

ing scale removal, drawing, and cold-upsetting has on the structural-phase composition of the material and the commercial

properties of the wire; improving the rheological properties of the lubricants used during drawing; increasing the service life

of the dies.

To determine the requirements for the properties of wire rod that is subjected to mechanical scale removal, we stud-

ied the effect of cooling in the line of the 250 rod mill on the quantity and composition of the scale and the structure and

mechanical properties of wire rod made of medium- and low-carbon steels.

To ensure that the drawing operation is not adversely affected by the coarse microrelief formed on the surface of

wire rod during mechanical cleaning, in 1997 the combine developed and has since continually improved the composition,

method of production,and method of use of a high-melting process lubricant based on soap and inorganic fillers. The

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progress that has been made has made it possible to stabilize the operation of drawing mechanically cleaned wire rod at final

drawing speeds of up to 465 m/min.

The changeover to mechanical cleaning improved the process ductility of the semifinished product in cold upsetting

(elongation increased from 60–65 to 78–85%),due to the absence of “pickling” brittleness on the surface of the metal. Scale

removal by alternating bending relaxes the structural stresses in the metal and improves its ductility characteristics over the

entire cross section of the wire rod (reduction of area has increased 15%). The shot-peening – which creates residual tensile

stresses in the surface layer – also has a positive effect on the upsetting operation.

The ZSMK currently produces 7500 tons of wire and sized rolled products a month on mills that have mechanical

scale-removal equipment. Most of the product mix is composed of wire with a diameter of 2.0–6.0 mm (GOST 3282),

3.0–5.0-mm-diam. reinforcement bars for reinforced concrete structures (GOST 6727),low-carbon welding wire 3.0–6.0 mm

in diameter (TU 14-4-828-77),2.0–6.0-mm-diam. wire for cold upsetting (GOST 5663),sized rolled products (bars

14–34mm in diameter) made of high-quality medium-carbon structural steel (GOST 1050),and sized rolled products of

medium-carbon structural steel and alloy steel for cold extrusion and upsetting (GOST 10702). Altogether, the ZSMK pro-

duced 350,000 tons of wire and sized rolled products by the new technology during the period 1995–2003.

Research findings, test results,and production experience have allowed the combine to attain high performance

indices in wire production with the use of mechanical cleaning methods. The consumption of ancillary materials has also

been reduced. During 2004–2005,the ZSMK plans to introduce the technology on a wider basis by equipping the draw

benches with lines for mechanically cleaning wire rod. The present capacity of these lines is 170,000 tons of wire and sized

rolled products a year. Ékomet-designed machines SCM-06 and SCM-07 are being modernized for installation in line with

the LNV0 6/20 and VG 1/1000 sizing mills. The greater ductility of the wire made using the mechanical scale-removal tech-

nology has made it more difficult to remove the burr left after formation of the point of the nail. We therefore constructed a

model of the final shaping operation in order to determine the approximate pattern of deformation of the metal during the

upsetting of the nail. This allowed us to change the stress-strain state in the shaping region by changing the angle of incli -

nation of the faces of the cutoff blade and controlling the ductility of the material.

The introduction of a technology that mechanically prepares the surface of the semifinished products for drawing

has made it possible to do the following:

• eliminate the pickling operation and reduce the consumption of hydrochloric acid by 1875 tons/yr;

• reduce the consumption of steel by 5 kg/ton wire;

• improve the environmental situation at the combine and in the neighboring region by eliminating the emission of

up to 20 tons of hydrochloric acid vapor a year;

• eliminate the discharge of spent pickling solutions into the sludge ponds at the combine and eliminate the discharge

of 2000 tons of ferrous oxide and 845 tons of calcium chloride into the settling tanks.

The savings realized from introduction of the mechanical descaling technology at the West Siberian Metallurgical

Combine totalled 18 million rubles in 2003.

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