SMS group received a purchase order from Nucor Steel Marion Inc. for a walking-beam furnace as part of the $85 million investment the company is making to upgrade its bar mill in Marion, Ohio. The reheating furnace represents the first and most important step of the broader modernization project, which will take approximately 18 months to complete. The order comprises a walking-beam reheating furnace rated at 120 short tons (109 metric tons) of billets per hour and includes loading and unloading billet-handling equipment as well as ancillary services such as a dedicated water-treatment plant.

The furnace will be split into several combustion zones, controlled independently and responding to SMSPrometheus software for heating optimization and digitally controlled extra-low-NOx burners.

Nucor Steel Marion will be able to achieve improved temperature uniformity and, therefore, better rolling quality of the billets out of the furnace, which will be the third of its kind supplied by SMS group to Nucor in the last few years.

—The 18th China(Guangzhou)Int’l Heat Treatment, Industrial Furnace Exhibition