At the Maastricht Service Center in Feijen, the Netherlands, a subsidiary of Tata Steel Netherlands, work has begun on the installation of a new state-of-the-art, high-performance flattening and cross-cutting line, complete with automated packaging. This investment by Tata Steel is part of a development plan in the face of the future increase in demand for high-quality, abrasion-resistant and high-strength steels, especially in the construction, mining and agricultural markets. Thanks to the new decoiling line, these steels can be processed faster, more accurately in a larger window and more sustainably. The finished sheets will be delivered to customers in Germany, Eastern Europe, Belgium, the United Kingdom and the Northern regions. The commissioning of the new plant, supplied by FIMI, is scheduled for mid-2024.

With the commissioning of this new line, high-strength coils will be able to be processed much faster and with more precision than lines currently on the market. In addition, the plant will be able to handle particularly demanding processes in a wide variety of applications: it will in fact be able to process coils weighing up to 40 tons and a yield strength of up to 1600 N/mm² with hardness levels up to UHSS (ultra-high strength) grades, in widths up to 2150 mm and thicknesses from 1.5 up to 13 mm, with a maximum speed of 40 m/min.

Thanks to FIMI, this is the most powerful line designed and produced for the processing of materials with very high tensile and yield strength on high thicknesses currently on the market.

The result will be very high sheet metal quality and the ability to meet the increasing technical requirements of future steel grades. Finished products processed by the line will have high flatness levels, less than 3 mm/m with very tight dimensional tolerances (less than ± 2.5 mm up to 12,000 mm sheet length). High-quality products processed at Feijen include abrasion-resistant Valast® 450 steel – used in agricultural and construction equipment, bodies and trailers – (UHSS) i.e. ultra-high strength steels, including Tata’s Ympress® range Steel from S700 to S1100 and above, and boron manganese steels (MnB5) for applications, for example, in agricultural equipment.

The high quality of the finished products will be possible thanks to the power of the new line, but also thanks to a series of automated functions, which make the process more sustainable. The plant will in fact be highly automated, a guarantee of high productivity and maximum safety. The automated functions and applications include: loading and trimming of the strip, robotic unit for removing the straps from the coils and finally a system for measuring the thickness and dimensions of the strip.

The new decoiling line will include three flattening units, thanks to which, among other things, the entry of the coil into the line can take place completely automatically, thus avoiding operator intervention, guaranteeing maximum safety.
The brushing process for removing calamine from the belts includes an intelligent extraction and filtering system, capable of minimizing the emission of particulates, both inside and outside the building.
The in-line measurement technology based on the adoption of a camera system will allow complete control of the surface quality and dimensions of the system in a totally automatic way.
Two packing stations will enable non-stop operations with a sheet-to-sheet stacking accuracy of 2mm. In addition, there will be automated sheet weighing and labeling systems. Furthermore, the advanced stacking technology includes an airbag system for noise reduction and shock absorption ensuring a reduction in noise emissions of up to a maximum of 85 dB when sheets are stacked on top of each other.

Thanks to the high performance of the line and the high level of automation present in many of the processing phases, the coils will be processed and packaged faster and more sustainably at the Feijen Service Center. That is why Tata Steel will be able to offer its customers the high-quality service they expect and will need in the future due to the constant increase in performance required by the market.

The flattening technology patented by FIMI will be the heart of the system: FIMI has in fact developed over the years a specific flattening process for high and ultra-high strength carbon steel material, then applied to the entire range, based on the use of all levelers installed in the line. This system, thanks to a combination of loads, flexions and tension on the n