December 02, 2008

Chinalco orders three ingot scalpers

SMS Meer has announced that Aluminum Corporation of China Chinalco China has placed an order with SMS Meer for the supply of three scalpers for aluminum ingots. The ingot scalpers will be employed in Chinalco Chinese aluminum rolling mills and are designed to meet the specific requirements of each mill, namely for the production of film and strip and for sheet production for the aviation and aerospace industry.

According to the release, the scalpers will be installed upstream of the hot rolling mill to remove the oxide skin and metallurgical impurities from the outer surface of the ingots. Scalping is performed in two steps, with the ingots being rotated by 180 ° between the scalping steps. The scalpers are equipped with a horizontal scalping head for the main surfaces and two edge scalping heads for the side surfaces of the aluminum ingots.

The released added that the use of the integrated edge scalper reduces the percentage of trimming scrap in the subsequent hot rolling process and at the same time prevents soiling of the work rolls in the hot mill. The ingot scalper is characterized by its high rigidity to guarantee the surface qualities in the μ range even with hard aluminum alloys.

SMS Meer is to supply the complete engineering for the associated transport system with roller tables, the drum type turn over device and the chip exhaust system. The exhausted scalping chips are broken into short pieces by a chip breaker from SMS Meer and can be melted down again. The scalpers are scheduled to go into operation at the end of 2009.