Tailor-made steel pipes are the backbone of the Nord Stream pipeline

Plant: Since 8 November provides the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline
from Russia directly to Germany. Before Chancellor Angela Merkel and
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the first of future two-leg was put
into operation, equipment and machinery manufacturers were required to
bring maximum benefits for the construction of 1224 km long pipeline.
For the large-diameter pipes are provided for customized high-tech
products.
VDI news, Düsseldorf, 25 11th 11, Si
The Nord Stream pipeline will continue to be with their two strands
each of length 1224 km one of the longest underwater pipelines in the
world. You should have a total annual transport capacity of about 55
billion m3 of natural gas. When fully commissioned in the next year,
the pipeline will connect the major gas reserves in Russia with the
European gas pipeline network. Both strands of 200 000 pipes with 1153
mm internal diameter and wall thickness between 26.8 mm and 41 mm are
required. Only the German manufacturers were responsible for the
production of about 140 000 tubes.
Pipes will be increasingly produced from high-strength steels such as
X65 and X100, the technical term for the strength of pipe grades. The
advantages: The pipes are significantly more resistant to
environmental influences. And they can be operated with a larger
internal pressure. At full capacity of the Nord Stream pipeline, the
pres...
...sure bar to 220. The company of the SMS Group, Hilchenbach
provide, for the entire process chain for the production of pig iron,
all essential equipment for the production of pig iron units to the
pipeline pipe.
In secondary metallurgical equipment receives its crude steel of the
first requirements for the subsequent material properties such as
hardness, tensile strength, yield strength, toughness, heat
resistance, wear resistance, machinability and corrosion resistance.
On the SMS Mevac, food, plants are supplied including the
high-strength steel grades, as it is needed for the pipeline pipes. To
achieve this, the liquid steel in so-called VD, VOD or RH plants
unwanted gases are removed under vacuum. Using a sophisticated slag
control the required purity of the steel is achieved. Then added
exactly predicted amounts of alloying elements such as chromium,
nickel, vanadium, for example, provide for high strength. SMS Mevac
has the technology necessary for this system developed in a way that
allows the chemical composition and the temperature control of liquid
steel in lead precisely target areas.
In continuous casting of molten steel through a cooled mold in which
forms an outer skin on the steel - it becomes a string. The shape of
the mold is in the form of a tow, such as slabs or billets. With the
continuous slab casters of SMS Siemag, Dusseldorf and Hilchenbach can
make customers more than 3 m wide slabs. The decisive factors are the
uniform metallurgical and quality interior flat, crack-free surfaces.
The company has the casting technique developed in recent years, which
on the one hand and productivity on the other hand, a constant high
product quality can be achieved.
For the strand guide segments in the SMS Siemag has developed the
Dynamic Soft Reduction. This system recognizes where transitions
within the slab of steel from liquid to solid state. Depending on this
position, the rollers exert a certain pressure in the segments of the
slab. The result is that the interior quality is improved.
In heavy plate rolling mills, the pre-heated slabs are rolled in a
reversing of heavy plates, directed and cut to the required
dimensions. One of the world's largest plate mills SMS Siemag for the
Russian steel firm MMK, Magnitogorsk completed. In the 1.5 km-long
work up to 5 m wide plates are produced. The specialty of the new
works are made of tubular steel plates to X 120th To these sheets with
high strength and yet produce flat surfaces, the plate mill has about
120 MN rolling force.
For the entire sheet metal fabrication is the interaction of the
correct rolling forces, rolling temperature, cooling rate and the
target parameters for the elementary plate quality. At the end of the
rolling process have emerged from the slab up to 52 m long sheets.
Order from a flat steel plate to produce a round tube, it must be bent
and then welded at the seams. For the production of "longitudinally
welded large pipes" was created by SMS Meer, Mönchengladbach,
developed the JCO process. It represents a novel flexible forming
process in a press. Here is the first sheet to a J, then a C and
finally formed into an O before it is sewn and welded under flux. The
JCO process is thanks to its flexibility, particularly for the
production of pipeline pipes in different sizes and for the use of
steel plates in high-strength material grades. Thilo Sagermann