INTRODUCTION

The role of ferrous metals in general and of steel in particular in national

economy is enormous. One cannot name an economic branch where ferrous metals find
no applications. The economic power of country is determined by its output of steel,
since it determines the progress in the principle economic branches, be it mining,
transport, manufacture engineering or agriculture implements is unthinkable without
steel.
An additional impetus for increasing the scope of steel manufacturers had
been the vigorous progress in chemical engineering. It has turned out that steel can be
very profitable combined with certain novel materials for instance plastic combined with
stainless steel are excellent materials fore making furniture, decorating automobiles
internal lining of houses and building purposes. As a result the manufacture of stainless
steel has been appreciably increased in order to cover these new demands in recent years.
The world for the steel rises continuously and is expected to reach the level of thousand
million tons per year by the end of this century. The steel will obviously remains the
principle structural material in for seeable.

To meet the above requirements the following iron and steel companies
were established:

Tata iron and steel company is the first ever-integrated steel plant in India in 1908
at Jamshedpur.
TISCO in Bihar
IISCO in Burnapur
Bhadravathi steel in Karnataka
Hindustan steel plant at Bhilai, Roerkela and Durgapur
Visakhapatnam steel plant at Visakhapatnam

VISAKHAPATNAM STEEL PLANT

In order to increase the steel production reasonably high in the nation and
remove the regional imbalances in industrial developments, the government of India
took a great step in setting up the coastal-based steel plant of India is visakhapatnam
steel plant in Andhra Pradesh. This plant is located 16km south west of the city limits.
A great emphasis has been made on total automation, seamless integration and
efficient up gradation at Visakhapatnam steel plant.
 This has resulted in a great demand for Visakhapatnam steel plant product
in India and abroad which are having international standards. Visakhapatnam steel
plant is considered to be the first integrated steel plant in India to become fully ISO-
9002 certified company. This certificate covers quality systems of training and
marketing functions over four regional marketing functions and 22 stock yards
located allover the country. The decision of the government of India to set up an
integrated steel plant at Visakhapatnam was announced by the Prime Minister
Smt.Indira Gandhi. The plant was inaugurated formally on 20 th January 1971 by the
prime minister.
The project was estimated to the cost of rupees 3,897.28 crores based on
process on 4th quarter of 1981 but during the implementation of VSP is has been on
served that the project cost as increased substantially over the sanctioned coast mainly
due to this and the approved concept were studied in 1986 the rationalization has
basically been from the point of view of obtaining maximum output from the
equipment already installed paneled for procurement, achieving the higher level of
operation efficiency and procurement over what was envisaged earlier under the
rationalized concept. 3.0 million tons of liquid steel is to be produced in a year and
the project is estimated to cost 5,822 crores based on 4th quarter of 1987.

VSPS FRUITFUL ACHIVEMENTS:

It has crossed many milestones in the fields of production, productivity and
exports.
Coke rate at an order of 543kg/tonn hot metal
Average converter life of 649 heats.
An average of 11.5 heats per sequence in continuous bloom caster.
Specific energy consumption of 7.51 Kcal/ton of liquid steel.
Specific refractory consumption of 15.2kg.
A labor productivity of 192-ton/man yr.
MODERN TECHNOLOGY & MAJOR PLANT
FACILITIES
MODERN TECHNOLOGY:
Visakhapatnam steel plant is the most sophisticated and modern integrated
steel plant in the country. Modern technology has been adopted in many areas of
production, some of them for the first time in the country.
Among these are:
Selective crushing of coal
Dry quenching of coke
On ground blending of sinter base mix
Conveyor charging and bell less top blast furnace
Cast house slag granulation for blast furnace
100% continuous casting of liquid steel
Gas expansion turbine for power generation utilization blast furnace top gas
pressure
Computerization for process control

THE MAJOR PLANT FACILITIES:

Coke oven batteries of 67 ovens each having 41.6 cu.m volume.
Sinter machines of 312 m2 area.
Blast furnace of 3200m3 useful volume.
Steel melt shop with three L.D converters of 150 ton capacity each and
6 nos. of 4 strand continuous bloom casters
Light and medium merchant mill of 710,000 tones per year capacity
Wire rod mill of 850,000 tons per year capacity
Medium merchant and structural mill of 850,000 tons per year
capacity

Extensive facilities have been provided for repair and maintenance as well
as manufacture of spare parts. A power plant, oxygen plant, compressed air plant
also form part of the plant facilities. The steel plant is getting its supply of iron
ore-lumps and fines from the bailadilla deposits in Madhya Pradesh. Blast furnace
grade limestone comes from jaggayyapet in Andhra Pradesh, SMS grade
limestone from Jaywalker and Goton in Rajasthan. Blast furnace and SMS grade
dolomite from Birmitrapur (Orrisa) the Khammam deposits in Andhra Pradesh.
70% of the coking coal requirements are met by imports through the harbor while
the balance come from the Bengal Bihar area. Coal for Power generation comes
from Anantha deposits of Talcher region in Orissa.
The plant has in-plant power generation from a power plant having 3 nos.
of 60MW sets installed. Additional requirements of operational power, around
 150MVA is being met from the APSEB grid. Operational power supply is initially
at 220 KV, which is subsequently stepped down to 400 KV.

PROFILE ON VSP

MAJOR DEPARTMENTS IN VSP:

1. Raw materials handling plant

2. Coke ovens and coal chemical division
3. Sinter plant
4. Blast furnaces
5. Steel melt shop
6. Rolling mills
a. LMMM (Light and medium merchant mill)
b. WRM (Wire rod mill)
c. MMSM (Medium merchant and structure mill)

VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS IN BRIEF:

1. Raw material handling plant:

VSP annually requires quality raw materials like iron ore, fluxes
(dolomite, limestone) coking coal and non-coking coal. It requires 12-13 million
tones of raw materials, which produce three million tones of liquid steel. It is
provided with unloading, stacking and reclaiming facilities, which include
wagon , tippler , ground and track hoppers. The various features are:

Peripheral unloading system for railway wagons

Blender reclaimed for blending of ores and fluxes
Storage yards to facilitate comfortable storage and supply of raw materials
Ring granulators for crushing of boiler coals
PLC control of all systems
Mixer for mixing lime is purchased and generated fines
Cone crushers for the crushing of lump ore.

2. Coke ovens and coal chemical division:

Coke is manufactured by heating of crushed coking coal in absence of
air at a temperature of 1000c and for about 16-18 hrs. a coke oven comprises of two
hallow chambers namely coal chamber and heating chamber. In heating chamber a
gaseous fuel such as gas, coke oven gas is burnt. The heat so generated is conducted
through the common wall to heat & carbonize the coking coal placed in the adjacent
coal chamber. Various features of coke oven are:

7 mts tall coke oven batteries.

Coke dry cooling or quenching using Nitrogen.
Recovery of BY-Product from coke oven gas by Distillation process.
Twin fuel gas regenerative system for power generation from coke oven
gas.
Back pressure turbine station for power generation from coke oven gas.
Selective coal crushing.
High productivity.
High capacity of coke oven s.

3. Sinter plant:

Sinter is hard, porous ferrous material obtained by agglomeration of iron

fines, coke breeze, lime stone fines, metallurgical waste like dust, mill
scale, LD slag. Usage of sinter in B.F increase productivity by decrease in
the coke rate and imposing the quality of hot metal produced. Parameters
of the machines are:

Effective area 312 m2

Sintering area 276 m2

Capacity 450 m2

Sinter bed height 300mm

4. Blast furnace:

Hot metal is produced in blast furnace, which are tall and vertical. Raw
materials are Iron Ore, Coke, Dolomite, and Limestone. It is charged from
the top and hot blast at 1100c-1300c. there are two B.Fs each with a
volume of 3200m3, each with 4 tap holes and with a daily production of
9720 tons of liquid steel. The technical parameters are:

Effective volume 3200m3

Capacity 4860TPD

Height 33.1m

Number of tap holes 4

Each furnace is facilitated with two Cast Houses, Slag Granulation

Plants. There are 4 Pig Casting Machines to handle the pig iron to cast into
PIGS.
5. Steel Melt Shop:

Steel is an alloy of iron with carbon up to 18%. Hot metal produced in B.F
contains impurities such as carbon (3.5-4.25%), silicon (0.4-0.5%,
manganese (0.3-0.4%), sulphur(0.04%max) and phosphorous(0.14%max).
to improve the quality of steel, the impurities have to be removed by
oxidation process which is done in converter shop having 3 LD converters.
Operational parameters are:

Useful volume 133m3

Capacity 150 tons

Temporary Lining Tarred Dolomite

Permanent lining Chrome magnesite

Oxygen working pressure 16kg/cm2
6. Rolling mills:

Blooms produced in SMS-CCD do not have much application as they are.

So they are shaped into Billets, Rounds, Squares, Angles, Channels, Wire
Rods, Rein Forced Bars etc. by rolling them in 3 sophisticated high
capacity, high speed, fully automated rolling mills namely LMMM, WRM,
MMSM.

a) Light and Medium Merchant Mill:

It is unique rolling mill; it consists of Billet Mill and Bar Mill. It is
facilitated with 2 walking beam furnaces of 200 TPH heating
capacity and 2 stand roller hearth furnaces. The roller hearth
furnace connects the billet with bar mill.
b) Wire Rod Mill:
It is a 4-stand mill and is fully automated. The mill has 4 zone
combination type pre heating furnace of 2100 TPH capacity. The
mill products include rounds and ribbed wire in size of 5.5mm-
12.7mm dia. Wire rods are made in coil from having maximum
weight of 1200kg. The mill is equipped with retarded still more
lines for improving the quality of wire rods.
c) Medium Merchant & Structure Mill:
This mill is installed at ground level and has the capacity of roll
8,50,000 ton of medium merchant products per annum. The feed
materials to mill are 250mm x 250mm blooms. MMSM is a high
capacity continuous rolling mill consists of 20 stands arranged in 3
train i.e. roughing, intermediate and finishing trains.