Value Engineering Case Study

Project Title: Simplification of drive system of dropping arrestor in Handling and

Finishing Line

Organization: Rashatriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), Visakhapatnam, A.P.

Members:
1. P. Durga Rao
2. R. Babu Rao
3. B. Koti Reddy

Introduction: VSP is an integrated steel plant with 100% continuous casting

facility. The Steel solidification process takes place in Continuous Casting Section.
TK STANDS
There are six continuous casting machines. Each machine has 4 strands. In each
strand the liquid steel stream is filled in a water-cooled copper mould. In the mould
the liquid steel is oscillated Mould Oscillating Mechanism. Then it goes through the
section where direct cooling takes place. Subsequently, the process of solidification
and withdrawal takes place to convert the liquid steel into solid form called Bloom
The three TK stands TK2, TK3 and TK4 withdraw the hot bloom at a
temperature of 1200 °C. The casted bloom is transferred by receiving roller tables
and is cut by the gas cutting machine with LPG torch. The cut bloom are sent to Bloom
Storage Yard with help of roller tables after GCM. In BSY the major and critical
equipment is Handling & Finishing Line (HFL)

Continuous Casting Machine

HFL & it’s Importance: In this entire process the Handling and Finishing Line
play the anchor role without this the blooms cannot be stacked and stored. At HFL
the blooms are sorted, and aligned with the help of dropping arrestors. Then the
blooms are pushed onto the cooling bed with Pushers. After cooling the blooms are
transferred with magnetic crane for stacking purpose
The salient features of HFL are:
• It mainly consists of rollers, pushers and dropping arrestors
• Its main function is to receive and dispatch the bloom continuously
• Life of individual roller is 6 months
• There is one drive roller and other three are connected by gear train
• The drive roller is fitted with 22230 bearing and lubricated by greasing
• Roller drives with electric motor and reduction gear box
• Gear train is lubricated with SS 100 oil

HFL Roller Table View

 Handling and Finishing Line
Dropping Arrestor: The main function of the dropping arrestor is to align the
blooms linearly so that they can handled by magnetic crane very easily. The
dropping arrestor also helps in prevention of blooms entry into another section of
rollers. The salient features are
• The dropping arrestor drive system is quite complicated
• It is driven by a 7KW motor with reduction gear box
• The output of the gearbox is connected to eccentric shaft supported by
bearings on both ends with plummer blocks
• The floating shaft gives support to balancer
• The balancer rests on eccentric shaft which has dropping arrestor on end
and counter weights on the other end
• A hinge support is connected to base and counter weight end for lifting and
lowering of dropping arrestor
• Dismantling the dropping arrestor is very difficult
 Dropping Arrestor & its’s Functional Parts

Problem: During long sequence of operation of the dropping arrestor, heavy

vibrations intrude in system. This results in loosening of plummer block bolts and
misalignment of the eccentric shaft causes seize of the gear box. It leads to non
function of the dropping arrestor. The “lot” of blooms does not align and are in
staggered manner which makes the magnetic crane operator very difficult to handle
the blooms and stack them on cooling beds. Miscue in handling the blooms result in
severe damage of equipment and also delay in stacking the blooms. It’s impacts are:
 Improper alignment of blooms
 Roller & Shaft Damages
 Motor & Water Jacket Damages
Improper Alignment of Blooms

Roller & Shaft Damages

 Motor & Water Jacket Damages

Objectives of Study:
• Reduce damages by handling due to magnetic crane
• Reduce consumption of dropping arrestor spares
• Re-use the dropping arrestor
• Overall reduction cost

Alternative Solutions: After continuous brain storming the following alternatives

are given in below table:

Thus the alternative solution of modifying the existing system with new
pneumatic cylinder for auto operation of dropping arrestor is found more
advantageous, this is taken for implementation.
Solution Implemented: The following activities were executed to implement the
solution:
• Dismantled and removed the existing motor, power cables gearbox, limit
switch, floating, shaft, brake unit and couplings
• A pneumatic cylinder of 120mm stroke length and 6 bar operating pressure
is taken from the shop floor
• A 24 V DC 2/5 solenoid valve with ½” BSP regulator(0-10 Bar) is indented
• ½” tapping is taken from the existing compressed air line, and an isolation
valve, regulator and solenoid are fixed in the line
• This line is laid till the dropping arrestor and connected to pneumatic
cylinder
• A bracket is welded to the dropping arrestor balancer and cylinder piston eye
is fixed to it
• Hinge support to bottom base is dismantled and balancing is done with
counter weights
• Initial trial is done by pressuring the cylinder gradually from 0.1 – 3 bar and
found the cylinder operates smoothly at 3 bar
• The entire system is checked continuously by operating for more than 10
times and found the system is smoothly running

Cylinder Fixed to Balancer

 Complete Dismantling of Old System (Motor & Gear Box)

Spares for New System

Cost benefit analysis is done and the total material cost is Rs 25170. Adding
manpower and consumable cost the total cost of fabrication 331764. There are
savings due to elimination of defective blooms, Savings due to elimination of spares
and importantly savings by reduction in power consumption, hence the total savings
are Rs 20,21,360. Return on investment or payback period is 59 days.
Conclusion: The Pneumatic cylinder is inspected and alignment done with respect
to the balancer alignment to check both horizontality and verticality. The strength of
beam is inspected and found normal. The modification has eliminated misalignment
and miscue operations. Effectively reduced spares consumption.
In the case study discussed we have used the concept of Value engineering to
analyze the drive system of dropping arrestor in HFL. The various advantages have
been observed in terms of cost reduction increase in overall productivity, reduction
in man power, reduction in scrap and improve yield