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California Style: All New, All HydrogenCalifornia Style: All New, All HydrogenCalifornia Style: All New, All HydrogenCalifornia Style: All New, All Hydrogen

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veryone knows that California is where trends begin, but what’s go-ing on right now at California Steel Industries is a rare happening. The Fontana flat-rolled producer is mid-way through a complete moderniza- tion of its batch annealing operation at a time when major projects for big steelmakers are few, and most of the new annealing capacity is being added by specialty producers and processors. It didn’t start out this way. California Steel, one of the largest suppliers of flat-rolled steel in the West and among the highest-volume importers of steel slabs, has been in- vesting handsomely over the past de- cade to enhance the quality of its products. Its five-stand tandem mill was rebuilt, a new hot-dip galvanizing line was added, and most recently the reheat furnace and hot mill have been modernized. Design and buildDesign and buildDesign and buildDesign and build
Rad-Con earned the contract in September 1999, a turnkey as- signment to be carried out in two phases. In the first phase, construction began on eight new bases in a coil-storage area near a strip-cleaning line. These were activated on August 26 last year, but during the construction project CS! was able to use its existing furnaces so that no production capacity was lost. The new equipment replaces the total 310,000-tpy capacity of the earlier batch annealing shops, which have now been idled and set for removal as 12 more bases are installed in Phase 2. According to Rad-Con, the next series of bases will begin arriving in Fontana this month, and Johnson expects to have the entire new installation available by midyear. Taking its turnkey assignment to heart, Rad-Con exerted an extra degree of design effort for the California Steel project, which Messina acknowledges was among the largest such projects recently undertaken. Among the changes in furnace design instituted for the CSI project was a HHHH
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Cold-rolled steel represents about 15%of CSI’s output, but two years ago its batch anneal-ing operations consisted of a 1970-vintage, single-stack facil-ity (with 15 bases, seven fur- nace bells) and an even older four-stack operation (with 12 bases, four furnaces). Both treated CR coils in a 7% hydro- gen/93% nitrogen atmosphere. Annealing, a controlled heat-treating process, “recrystallizes” the grain structure in a coil of steel to restore the formability that is worked out by cold rolling. Automakers, appliance builders, and other fabricating customers require uniform forma-bility, as well as surface cleanliness, in the steel they buy. The advantages of a 100% hydro-gen atmosphere have led to its grow- ing popularity for batch annealing op- erations; for California Steel, all-hydrogen will significantly reduce the amount of strip cleaning needed prior to annealing because it effec- tively consumes rolling fluids or other impurities that remain on the surface after cold rolling. It also has operating cost and environmental advantages. Most critically, it is viewed as a better heat-treating atmosphere for com-mercial grades of cold-rolled steel. “For our requirements,” according to CSI operations manager Dave John-son, “the hydrogen technology made the most sense.” While the need to update its batch annealing first became a discussion point at California Steel in 1998, at that time a more modest upgrade to the single-stack system was anticipated. A more comprehensive solution was offered by Rad-Con Inc. They pointed out, persuasively, that consol- idating the two batch annealing opera-tions was possible using the firm’s “slim base” design because the exist- ing building would accommodate charges as high as 243 in. without dig-ging into the foundation. “This charge size is the largest on the West Coast,” according to Chris Messina, Rad-Con’s v.p.-technology, “and is among the tallest anywhere. Add this feature to the shorter cycle times associated with hydrogen, and CSI was able to replace the 15 single-stack and 12 four-stack bases with just 20 single-stack hydrogen bases.” A further advantage would be the greater efficiency of the product flow through a single station. The new an-nealing capacity would be 360,000 tpy of commercial- and drawing-quality steels. “We concluded that with utility savings, the understanding that much of our equipment needed to be upgraded, and the opportunity to consolidate the two shops,” recalls Dave Johnson, “the investment was worthwhile.” Phase 1 of California Steel’s new annealing facility—eight bases—is operating; 12 more bases start up later this year. By Robert Brooks, Managing Editor