Cognor, a leading Polish steelmaker, recently fired up a new reheating furnace designed to increase production capacity at the company's Krakow-based Cognor Ferrostal Labedy plant. The first hot billet was successfully discharged, as planned and at the first attempt, marking an important achievement in the company’s expansion programme.
The Krakow plant specializes in the production of long hot-rolled steel products for the building, construction and creative industries. Due to increasing demand for high-quality square bars on the domestic market, the company had to expand its furnace capacity to meet the new production requirements.
“We recently invested in the modernization of our plant to be more competitive in the market and engaged Fives [an industrial engineering group] to renovate our existing pusher furnace to reheat high quality square billets. We greatly appreciate Fives’ commitment to developing a customized solution and delivering tailor-made equipment to achieve higher production while decreasing operational costs”, says Wojciech Stefanczyk at Cognor.
We greatly appreciate Fives’ commitment to developing a customized solution and delivering tailor-made equipment to achieve higher production while decreasing operational costs."
Wojciech Stefanczyk at Cognor.
The new 75 tonnes/hr pusher furnace reheats square billets with a thickness ranging from 120 to 160 mm to feed a new rolling mill and a new spooler line.
A new tailor-made side charging machine, supplied by Fives, loads and positions billets inside the furnace, avoiding the typical inaccuracies of other solutions.
The furnace is equipped with first-generation AdvanTek® wide-flame burners in the preheating zone, which, claims Fives, ensure optimal combustion control, reduced gas consumption and a significant decrease in scale formation.
In addition, new automation software enables fully automatic operation of the furnace, reducing manual intervention and increasing safety.
“It was a challenging project due to the technical constraints of the existing furnace. We had to maintain the original equipment configuration while improving the overall efficiency and reducing operating costs. We are proud to have successfully produced the first hot billet in February 2024. Our goal is to reach full production in the next few weeks,” says Imanol Bilbao, Thermal Technology Manager at Fives Steel Spain, a Fives’ subsidiary specializing in long product thermal solutions.