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trailer world issue One 2008

Portrait Issue One 2008 23 There are animal transporters for live animals, concrete mixers for fresh concrete and tankers for liquids. However unusual the load, each has its own particular transport solution. And that also applies to hot slag, at a temperature far in excess of 1,000° C, which accu- mulates at the steel works and needs to be disposed of. To carry this away, Saxon heavy engineering manufacturer Kirow develops, pro- duces and sells what are known as SPCs, or slag pot carriers. These monstrous slag pot carriers are to be found as indispensable help- ers in steelworks the world over. Trouble-free steel production is de- pendent on their reliability. Slag disposal in the steelworks is an undertaking not without its dangers. For one thing, liquid slag at temperatures up to 1,500° C is a load that needs sensitive handling. Its temperature level, approaching that of molten steel, requires particularly high safety standards for man and machine. On the other hand, the spatial conditions inside steelworks are often critical and there is not always a lot of room for manoeuvring the slag pots. Special articulated slag transporters have proven very suitable for this demanding task, and these are also to be found in the range of Kirow Leipzig. Its slag pot carriers are always adapted precisely to suit the application at the location in question. They are extremely manoeuvrable despite their considerable dimensions, and are con- sidered to be safe to operate thanks to a control system with pro- grammable memory, which does not permit any recognisable mal- functions. One of the highly popular Kirow models is called the SPC 80. These giants already weigh 75 tonnes when empty, and can carry over 80 tonnes of red-hot slag in a single load, from the steelworks to the nearest disposal site. The DSU Gesellschaft für Dienstleistungen und Umwelttechnik (Services and Environmental Technology Com- pany) currently already has ten such transporters in use throughout Germany, and has ordered five more. Three of these mega-trans- porters are in service at the Krupp Mannesmann steelworks (HKM) in Duisburg. At their Duisburg plant alone, HKM already brews up around five million tonnes of steel every year. That represents around ten percent of the unmachined steel produced in Germany. Large quantities of slag of varying quality accumulate in steel production, just like the residues in the ash pan of your fireplace at home. Approx. 800,000 tonnes of this pig iron desulphurisation slag, casting ladle slag or so- called LD-slag are disposed of by DSU on behalf of HKM every year, thus maintaining round-the-clock steel production. Without the giant slag transporters, it would hardly be possible to cope with these quantities. The special SPV 80 transporters, five me- tres wide, almost as high and 13 metres long, work in a similar way to a dump truck. They take the full slag pot, place it on a platform that is clad in fire-resistant material, transport it to the slag bed and Clever little chap It first saw the light of day in Ulm, but it reached full maturity in Leipzig: the SPC slag transporter. Product manager Thomas Rieger and his team were smart enough to use this split to extend the product range of Kirow, the heavy engineering manufacturer. The SPCs carry up to 160 tonnes of hot slag. Photos:Kramer,DSU

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