South Korea’s SMS Group has won a contract from Pohang Iron and Steel Company (POSCO)—the fifth largest steel producer in the world and the largest in South Korea—to modernize its existing wire rod mill at its Pohang works.

A press release said that the project calls for the replacement of some equipment along the mill (existing descaler and additional one on the rolling mill), a new cropping shear, a shiftable water cooling line, pouring reel machines with walking beam conveyor, cooling fans and hoods assuring in-line treatment of coils. The plant now produces 540,000 tons per year of wire rod and bar-in-coils for automotive applications from 14 up to 42 mm, with coils up to two tons.

The project, the release said, will allow POSCO to widen coiled round products up to 55 mm, and smaller products rolled at 22 m per second. The mechanical areas will be connected with a scratch-free conveying system that, combined with the automation package supplied by SMS group, will grant POSCO a quality improvement on the rolled surface of the bars and a better coil shape and formation. Further implementations are the off-line simulation process with CCT® (Controlled Cooling Technology) and quick changing system of the water cooling line in less than five minutes to grant better plant efficiency. These features will give POSCO the possibility to better supply the automotive and special steels market.

“This latest modernization project further underlines SMS group’s upgrade expertise and its position as a leading supplier of rolling mills for quality steels in all size ranges,” the release said.

The SMS Group, a group of companies internationally active in plant construction and mechanical engineering for the steel and nonferrous metals industry, has some 14,000 employees. The sole owner of the holding company SMS GmbH is the Familie Weiss Foundation.