The environmental diagnosis of the coke plant site in Homécourt has been carried out over the last 15 years. Bail Industrie has selected two zones on the site for a remediation program in view of their further redevelopment. The weakly polluted grounds were submitted to a bio treatment, while the more polluted grounds were treated by thermal desorption. Tars have been incinerated off site. To assess the effectiveness of the treatment, percolation tests are carried out.

The “airtight” technology allows energy savings but hinders direct process observation inside the vessel and information on the unmelted scrap volume and on possible skull formation at the furnace walls. To overcome this difficulty, a new concept is proposed, based on mounting a camera and an endoscope inside an existing burner. This technique has been first implemented on the 155 tons DC furnace in the PROFILARBED Esch-Belval plant. Typical images of the melting phase are presented. Scrap movement mechanisms in the burner produced cavity have been displayed in real time. Operational benefits combine the appraisal of scrap basket charging time and anticipation of abnormal melting behaviour.

A new method for controlling the BOF process is proposed that involves the use of an original in blow heterogeneous sampler and a dedicated laser analytical method. The aim is to deliver a fast and comprehensive analysis of steel and slag collected by the heterogeneous- samplings. Combined with a metallurgical model, the data obtained with the heterogeneous samples make it possible to dynamically assess the refining progress in order to allow a safe direct tapping practice.

The control of temperature distribution across the strip is essential for the hot strip flatness improvement. Hot strips of Arcelor in Avilès may display wavy edge defects that are generated after the finisher and are attributed to residual stresses introduced by the accelerated cooling on the run-out-table. A first approach has established that the thermal drop on the run-out-table has a significant effect on flatness, at the edges in particular. Among several systems that may control temperature at the edges, the edge masking technology has been selected, considering the previous implementation on CSP mills. Wavy edges are considerably removed or even suppressed on the operator side, while they are reduced but not eliminated on the drive side.

The coefficient of friction is one of the tribological factors that characterize the process of multi pass hot rolling. Friction is strongly dependent on inter-pass and in-pass rolling and cooling processing parameters. It can be improved by application of hot lubrication under specific conditions. This paper builds upon previous studies on the application of a Coulomb-Norton friction mathematical model, to study the influence of hot lubrication for a range of rolling conditions, with a view to define conditions where lubrication is most effective.

Thickness defects on thin strips are caused by the cold rolling process itself or by mechanical trouble at the tandem mill. Dedicated experimental measurements of the related phenomena are reported and a global analysis of their effect on the final product thickness is put forward. Innovative advanced solutions are presented to achieve high thickness performance.

ThyssenKrupp's n° 8 hot dip galvanizing line is equipped with a Chemcoater to apply passivating layers such as chromate or phosphate to the galvanized strip. Attention must be paid to the fact that the Chemcoater process can operate at variable speeds. The investigations to achieve a constant thickness of the coated layer over width and length are reported.