ABS awarded with worldsteel Steelie Award

The World Steel Association (worldsteel) Steelie Awards recognise member companies or individuals for their contributions to the steel industry over a one-year period.

On October 16, during the worldsteel Annual Dinner held in Tokyo, special steel producer ABS received the prestigious “Steelie Award” as “Innovation of the year”.

Developed and supplied by Danieli, and installed at ABS in Italy, the new Rotoforge (RF) is a revolutionizing technology for the production of heavy round and square bars up to 500 mm, overcoming the traditional limitations of rolling and forging.

Rotoforge is a hybrid production method, which has a similar production process and characteristics to a rolling mill through the use of a forge, as it exerts much greater mechanical pressure on the individual pieces than those exercisable by classic rolling mills. This approach ensures internal structural characteristics of steel at par with forged products.

Traditional hot-rolled mills achieve a maximum reduction per rolling pass of only about 60-70 mm, for each transit of the charge on the section with opposed cylinders (lacking however, optimal homogeneity in the heart of the piece).

Rotoforge allows a higher reduction per rolling pass – up to 200 mm for each transit. The use of large rolls and the consequent reduction of feeding angles allows for a reduction in the number of rolling passes required even for heavier starting products, thereby improving productivity.

Overall, the internal soundness of the bar, commonly measured using ultrasound methods and expressed in FBH (flat bottom hole), is close to 2 mm thanks to the RF process, typical of forged products. In comparison, rolled products settle at values of around 10 mm FBH.

The Rotoforge operation at ABS is the first installation of this kind in the world.