SSAB steel is custom-made in Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF). The continuous caster, in combination with the state-of-the-art Steckel Mills, provide customers with exacting width and gauge control, superb surface finish and uniform mechanical properties.
In 1997, SSAB began producing steel at its Montpelier steelworks leveraging more than 30 years of experience in Steckel rolling technology in North America. The Montpelier mill was the first plate mill in the world to incorporate continuous flow production. The Montpelier steelworks’ annual capacity is 1,250,000 tons of plate up to 120" wide and up to 3" thick and hot rolled coil up to 96" wide and 0.750" thick.
Building on the success of the Montpelier facility, a second state-of-the-art steelworks was constructed in Mobile, Alabama. The Mobile steelworks, which commenced operations in 2001, produces 1,250,000 tons per annum of discrete plate and coil, in dimensions similar to the Montpelier plant. In addition, Mobile has the capability to heat treat and blast and paint plates.
SSAB in North America is certified to ISO-9001 and several other accrediting bodies. Its Quality Assurance program monitors the steel through each phase of the production process.
Melt Shop
SSAB steelworks are EAF based facilities which use scrap metal as the primary raw material. After tapping into the receiving ladle, the steel is transferred to a ladle metallurgy station which refines and, if necessary, reheats the steel to the optimum consistency for further processing. Montpelier has the capability to further refine the liquid steel using vacuum degassing technology.
Continuous Caster
The ladle is then transferred to the continuous casting machine which converts molten steel into 6" thick slabs. The casters are equipped with the most modern technology to ensure optimum quality during the production of slabs. For many grades, slabs are directly charged to the reheat furnace without the need for slab conditioning.
Reheat Furnace
Slabs are uniformly reheated to the target temperature prior to hot rolling.
Steckel Mill
From the reheat furnace, slabs proceed to the Steckel Mill for rolling to final product dimensions. The SSAB Steckel Mills allow the conversion of very large slabs (up to 75 tons) into plate and coil by maintaining slab rolling temperature through the use of heated take-up coiler drums on both sides of the mill stand. These drums store the increasing rolled length between passes and allow for additional heat retention and thermal consistency in the rolled piece. This results in improved uniformity throughout the rolled product. SSAB mills are capable of producing plate and coil to dimensional tolerances tighter than standard ASTM.
Plate Finishing
The rolled plate is divided into mother plates (up to 240' long) - as many as eight mother plates per slab depending on thickness. The plates then leave the mill line, and, after an in-line pass through the hot leveler, proceed onto a disc roll type cooling bed. The disc rolls protect the bottom surface of the plates from the damage which can arise when dragged over conventional static skids. After the cooling bed, the mother plates are sheared to final length, side trimmed (5/8" max), cold leveled, stenciled, and bundled for shipment.
Coil Finishing
The mills can also produce coiled products, in which case the long as-rolled lengths are wound into a coil for ease of handling and transport.
Heat Treatment
After rolling and finishing, some plates are taken to a separate heat treatment facility for further processing. Here plates can be either quenched and tempered (Q&T) or normalized. On the Q&T line, plates are initially reheated to a temperature of about 900° C, and then cooled rapidly with water to ambient. Some plates are used in the as-quenched condition, while others are tempered (tempering temperature ranges from 200 to 700° C) and leveled. After leveling, the plates are air cooled, inspected, sheared to final length, stenciled and prepared for shipment.
On the normalizing line, plates are reheated to a temperature of about 900° C and then air cooled after exiting the furnace. This is followed by inspection, shearing or burning to the final length, stenciling and shipment.
Blast and Paint
It is also possible to further prepare finished plates for next step processing by blasting both surfaces to remove any residual mill scale and then applying a primer coat to the blasted surfaces. Following this blast and paint process, plates are inspected, stenciled and prepared for shipment.
Transportation
Once the product is complete, SSAB will design a transportation package that assures convenient delivery, by road, rail or barge, to all destinations in North America.
Major Product Groups
U.S. Steel Mill Products - Montpelier and Mobile
Coil
• 0.188" through 0.750" thick
• 60" through 96" wide
• Grades: ASTM, AISI, API, CSA, EN, SAE, Low to Medium Carbon, High Carbon, HSLA , Alloy, Abrasion Resistant, Boron, ABS & Lloyds Certified
Slit Coil (Montpelier)
• 0.625" x 96" slitter
Plate
• 0.188" through 3" thick
• 60" through 120" wide
• Grades: ASTM, AISI, API, CSA, EN, SAE, Low to Medium Carbon, High Carbon, HSLA, Alloy, Abrasion Resistant, Boron, ABS & Lloyds Certified, Bridge Steels, Quenched and Tempered, Normalized
Major End Uses
Our customers cross the energy, transportation, construction, industrial equipment and distribution markets. Specific end uses include bridges, barges, rail cars, wind towers, transmission towers, oilfield tanks, offshore platforms, heavy equipment (construction and agriculture), shipbuilding, marine equipment, and pipe manufacturing.