Roughing, intermediate and finishing mill control upgrade

2014 - Boyacá, Colombia - Colombia

Russula was selected to upgrade the control of the Votorantim Paz del Rio 350,000 ton/year wire rolling mill. This project was a continuation from a technical consulting assessment of the 2 strand wire mill that Russula previously provided in order to improve the current mill configuration and eliminate electrical failures. This project was executed in conjunction with a mechanical upgrade for the looper table, also supplied by Russula.

Scope of Supply

Russula provided the hardware, software development, installation supervision and commissioning for the control upgrade of the roughing, intermediate and finishing mill.

As requested by the customer, ten Automax rack drives and most of the original remote I/Os were kept for reducing the project investment. Consequently, a gateway between the ControlLogix and Automax was used for the communication.

The old HMI was upgraded with two server Wonderware InTouch , including supervision for the entire mill, detailed screens of all zones, association to an SQL recipe database. A new main desk with a touch panel was installed, migrating some physical buttons to the screens.

Electrical and Controls Scope of Supply

PLC: Rockwell ControlLogix

DC Drives: ABB DCS800

HMI: Wonderware InTouch

HSDAS: iba System

Project Execution

Delivery and installation occurred in January 2014. During 6 days, 13 engineers commissioned this project. Finally, control adjustments, operator and maintenance training and production supervision were performed to ensure smooth operations after the upgrade.

"I want to congratulate each and every one of you for this achievement, which was due to dedication, continuous work, operational discipline and teamwork."

Paulo Cezar Loures, Votorantim Corporate Technology

Results

The new Rockwell ControlLogix PLCs system improved the quality and performance of the rolling mill due to changes implemented in the mill control, such as the new cascade speed control using R-Factor calculations.

The impact of Russula's work reflected on the performance of the rolling mill, not only during the start-up month, but in the sustained operations of the rolling mill's life:

Record shift production: 535 tons (May 29, 2014)
Record monthly production: 30,346 tons
Best mill utilization rate: 73.8%
Highest metallic yield: 95.63%

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