Process improvements from raw materials to finished products
We have worked with the Steel Manufacturing Industry for decades and offer a portfolio of products to address your challenges in every stage of the production process, from raw materials sourcing to strip processing. Our offerings comprise a complete range of solutions to improve the steel manufacturing process.
Raw Materials Analysis
Driving process control, laboratory efficiencies and ultimately higher quality end products in the metals and mining industries begins with the information you can gain from elemental analysis. We offer a variety of technologies and proven products to deliver exceptional laboratory informatics.
Powerful and efficient analyzers help better understand the composition of your raw materials, and give you more control over downstream production processes.
Our product offerings have been developed specifically for steel manufacturers to further reduce sample analysis cost, increase sample throughput, deliver better reproducibility and higher quality results for your application.
Sinter Control
The production of high-quality sinter is crucial for assuring consistent, stable furnace productivity with a low consumption of reductants. Sinter quality begins with the proper selection and mixing of the raw materials as inhomogeneous raw mix can affect permeability and cause an increase in fuel consumption.
Sinter feed composition control is important because the various sinter feed materials are not perfectly characterized and their chemical make-up varies within a batch and between batches.
The raw feed material chemistry changes and the additives feed rates should be adjusted to smooth out these variations in the sinter strand feed chemistry. The basicity of sinter feed material is an important parameter in the efficient operation of the sintering and iron making process and stabilization of the basicity delivers benefits not only to the sinter operations but to the downstream iron making process.
Blast Furnace
Accurate multi-component blast furnace gas analysis maximizes iron production and minimizes coke consumption.
In a blast furnace producing 5,000 tons a day, a reduction in coke consumption of just 10 kg per ton of iron produced provides a payback of over $10,000 per day.
Thermo Scientific process mass spectrometers successfully monitor blast furnace off gas at many of the world’s iron and steel companies. Users report that the combination of fast, accurate MS gas analysis for gas efficiency, heat & mass balances and hydrogen analysis, with advanced process control and mathematical modeling, reduces coke consumption by up to 100 kg per ton and also increases iron production.
Scrap Processing
Scrap metal found in recycling facilities may be contaminated with radiation from orphan sources. Rugged drive-through detectors and monitoring devices provide full vertical coverage of vehicle loads for highly sensitive radiation detection.
Accurate, reliable radiation detection and monitoring instruments are required for every step of the scrap metal recycling process to detect radiation commonly found in scrap metal.
This technology can also be adapted for conveyor monitoring of incoming raw materials. For closer inspection of localized “hot” spots in the load, handheld radiation detectors allow for confirmation of the type of contamination and isolate it before it enters the facility.
Floor Materials Analysis
Advances in technology and instrument design enable highly accurate, easy to use analysis with low limits of detection in a handheld system.
Designed to return lab quality results in the field and on the shop floor, handheld elemental analyzers can dramatically increase productivity, reduce costs and improve quality control.
Our range of handheld LIBS and XRF analyzers can be used for verification of metals and alloys on the shop floor, non-destructive field inspections for material ID, coating and thickness measurements in finished product and a custom application to meet your process requirements.
Laboratory Materials Analysis
Our optical emission spectrometers come with turn-key analytical solutions allowing fast and simultaneous determination of all the relevant elements in many metals and alloys.
Thermo Scientific energy-dispersive and compact wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence models offer rapid non-destructive elemental analysis of solids, liquids and powders.
Analyzing with accuracy and precision from trace to percent element concentration levels, our instruments’ reliability fulfill all the analytical tasks required by steel companies.
Flat Sheet Gauging
Our thickness gauges for hot- and cold-rolling mills provide precise, real-time measurements during high-speed production of steel plate and sheet to help you meet the tightest tolerances.
Thermo Scientific online gauging systems provide you with fast, accurate, non-contact and non-destructive thickness and coating weight measurements needed to achieve high product quality and maximum productivity.
Flat sheet gauging Our coating weight gauges for metallic and coil coating lines offer cross-profile measurements to ensure uniformity for better quality and less waste.
Regulatory Compliance
As your partner in compliance, our systems are designed with the necessary protocols to ensure your monitoring reports are accurate and accessible.
Our system solutions can be designed to help you comply with US EPA Part 60 or Part 75 performance standards, as well as other US and International ambient air and source gas monitoring standards.