The heart of a steelworks never stops beating. Working continuously, year after year, a large blast furnace will produce over five million metric tons of raw iron yearly. To feed the furnace, huge volumes of materials need to be moved from A to B day in, day out. Lump ore, pellets, sinter, coke, and other essential raw materials are conveyed in batches to the blast furnace by a belt conveyor or an inclined elevator with winch. The supply of raw materials must not be interrupted and conveyor systems must operate perfectly. Drives from SEW-EURODRIVE run continuously at full output, and are the number one choice when system availability really matters.

A steel converter is filled with steel scrap and molten iron from the blast furnace. Adding oxygen to this mix reduces its carbon content, ultimately turning the iron into steel. The whole process takes around half an hour. Unplanned system downtime during this crucial process step would be an absolute nightmare for any plant operator, but you can avoid that very risk by using drive technology from SEW-EURODRIVE.

In the circular economy, steel scrap is broken down and sorted, before then being transported to steelworks by ship, train, or truck for further processing. The steel scrap is handled using huge magnets or, in the case of smaller pieces, crane grabs.

Electric arc furnaces are used in small or particularly energy-efficient, or green steelworks. They are filled with steel scrap and fitted out with electrodes. An electric current is passed through the steel scrap and melts the mass. The furnace is tilted so the molten steel can flow into a ladle car.

Ladle cars and torpedo cars are used to transport either molten iron or molten steel to further processing steps.

It is particularly important that the drives on these cars facilitate a reliable tilting motion when the cars are being emptied and ensure they run smoothly when operating with heavy loads.

The molten steel from the converter or electric arc furnace is moved from A to B in a ladle car.

The steel will pass through several process steps in the steelworks as part of secondary and tertiary metallurgy. One well-known treatment is vacuum degassing to remove unwanted gases from the steel.