Stainless Steel Cladding Operation Seeks Alternative Uses for New Plant

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Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). In 2002, Spray Forming International, a division of Commercial Metals Company (NYSE:CMC) (Dallas, Texas), constructed a plant to clad carbon steel products with stainless steel, using spray forming technology licensed from Osprey Metals Limited. The plant was built adjacent to Commercial Metals’ SMI Steel-South Carolina division’s 650,000-ton-per-year steel mill, located at 310 New State Road in Cayce, South Carolina.

Since that time, Spray Forming International has stopped production at its steel cladding and coating facility, in order to work out problems with its rolling mill, which was producing low yield. The company is performing rolling mill testing to optimize its operation. The testing will probably take a year to complete, at which time cladding operations will be restarted.

The operational difficulties have postponed a planned $4 million expansion of the cladding plant for at least one to two years. Plans for expansion were first reported by Industrialinfo.com in January of 2002.

In the interim period, the company is looking at several other projects to utilize the plant's equipment. The company is evaluating options, which include making castings for shredders, utilizing the plant's 5-ton induction melting furnace. The company would have to bring in molding boxes and some other minor equipment in order to produce castings.

The following process synopsis was taken from the Spray Forming website. The stainless steel cladding process uses round carbon steel billets from the SMI steel mill. The billet is shot-blasted to remove any scale and surface impurities. The cleaned billet is transferred to a coating line, where it slowly rotates and proceeds through an induction coil to reach 2000°F. Once the billet is heated, it enters a spray chamber flooded with nitrogen gas under positive pressure. Inside the chamber, the carbon billet is spray coated with molten stainless steel melted in an induction furnace to 3000°F. The stainless steel cladding is metallurgically bonded to the carbon core. The coated billet exits the spray chamber, is inspected, and transferred to a rolling mill. The rolling mill reheats the stainless clad billet and shapes it into finished products utilizing traditional rolling methods. The stainless cladding "flows" along the bar, resulting in a uniform coating thickness. This completes the manufacturing process.

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