DanSteel has commissioned a new walking beam reheating furnace at its rolling complex 4200 in Frederiksvaerk, Denmark, marking a significant step towards increased efficiency and environmental responsibility. Designed and commissioned by SMS group, this advanced furnace aims to enhance the production of XXL high-quality heavy plates.
DanSteel serves key industries such as automotive, shipbuilding, construction, energy production, and offshore windmill manufacturing. The production of structural heavy plate steel is a multi-step process, with slab reheating for rolling being crucial to the quality and cost-efficiency of the end product.
At DanSteel’s rolling complex 4200, slabs are heated in either a walking hearth furnace or the new walking beam furnace, depending on their dimensions. The new furnace, suitable for large and heavy slabs up to 400×2800 mm, offers significant advancements in heating capacity and efficiency.
Installed in 2021 and commissioned in 2022, the walking beam furnace can heat up to 100 tons of slabs per hour, maintaining a maximum temperature difference of just 30 degrees Celsius between the coldest and hottest points on the slabs. It also reduces CO2 emissions by 17-18pct compared to existing furnaces, thanks to innovative features like the SMS ZEROFlame burner, which operates in flameless mode to achieve extremely low NOx emissions. This reduction aligns with global efforts to minimize the environmental impact of industrial processes.
The primary goals of installing the new furnace were to expand DanSteel’s product range to include XXL high-quality heavy plates, improve production efficiency, and enhance the environmental performance of the slab reheating process.
