A contract to semi-automate the shear facilities at the Corus Teesside Beam Mill, Lackenby [UK] has resulted in 95% automation of the process, delivering valuable efficiency and cost-saving benefits. The contract was awarded to Converteam (formerly part of Alstom), who have a wide experience in developing control systems for industrial applications. Before the up-grade the shear plants controls were all manual and operated from an isolated platform dedicated to manipulating the shear and requiring a designated operator.
As part of the upgrade the shear controls have now been relocated to the plant's cogging platform where the semi-automated operation requires less manual supervision.
An advanced control system is the key part of the upgrade, at the heart of which is Converteam's powerful but compact GEM510 PLC which was selected because of its important versatility in industrial applications.
At the interface of the plant and the PLC is GEMTEQ I/O, this has advanced features and functions that make it intelligent and capable, yet even easier and more intuitive to use.
It was selected as the ideal I/O because it offers the high availability and reliability required for this type of architecture.
Completing the control package is a latest generation Red-Lion HMI Communicator, which provides a robust and easy-to-use, operator control panel for status indication and basic controls.
Converteam's engineering team also designed and manufactured the control panel, control desk and managed their complete installation, including the control cabling.
More than 95% of the shear operation is now controlled automatically including the ingoing tables,shear alignment and outgoing tables.
The only task now required by an operator is to acknowledge the final cut after the system has automatically aligned the head or tail of the steel plate to be cut.
Overall the project has been installed, tested and commissioned and is now working in both manual and automatic operation.
Corus are said to be delighted with the operation and functionality of the new installation and the benefits, which the automatic control sequencing provides the mill.
