ArcelorMittal Poland invests 5,6m €..

…to make better rails!

Control centre for ArcelorMittal’s continuous casting line n. 3 in the company’s Dabrowa Gornicza steel plant. Photo ArcelorMittal.

A 5.6m euro (£4.8m) quality control monitoring unit was commissioned on Friday at ArcelorMittal’s rail rolling mill in Dabrowa Gornicza. The new facility can check the quality of rails up to 75 metres long at the rate of 1.5 metres/second.

Surface scale is removed as the rails pass through a cleaning unit. Lasers and high resolution cameras check the profile and the presence of any distortions in the rail. Surface defects which could lead to cracks are detected by a device which uses induction currents. Internal defects are detected using ultrasound.

The contract for the installation was signed with Knorr Technik in June 2008, a building permit was issued in April 2009, work commenced in May and the newe facility went live two months later.

Sajany Samaddar, the Chairman of ArcelorMittal Poland, considers the new unit to be a strategic development for the company and points out that the investment took place in spite of the difficult economic environment in which ArcelorMittal Poland and the whole steel sector now finds itself.

It’s good to find a company prepared to invest in Poland and to invest in the future railway transport during a time of world recession. Much of the rail manufactured at Dabrowa Gornicza is exported. ArcelorMittal Poland owns the steelworks in Nowa Huta, Dabrowa Gornicza, Sosnowiec, Świętochlowice and Chorzow and controls 70% of Poland’s steel production capacity. The company is the biggest steel producer in the world employing over 300,000 people in over 60 countries.