Nucor Corporation held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new facility at Brandenburg, Kentucky, USA, on October 23, 2020. For this project, the SMS group will supply a single-strand caster for ultra-wide and ultra-thick slabs.
The continuous caster will produce slabs with thicknesses of 200 to 305 millimeters and widths of up to 3,150 millimeters. Nucor will thus operate one of the world’s largest continuous casting plants.
The vertical bending machine is equipped with numerous quality-defining technologies that meet Nucor’s high standards. In addition, a customized strand guide, an intensive cooling line and a secondary cutting line are supplied.
For the new heavy plate complex, SMS Group will also supply the entire reheating plant for slabs and ingots, a heat treatment plant for thick plates up to 356 millimeters thick, and a continuous heat treatment plant with MultiFlex quench for heavy plates with a thickness of 4.8 to 102 millimeters and a width of up to 4,267 millimeters.
“We are very proud to be building the new heavy plate mill together with SMS. This project is the largest single investment in our company’s history. When the plant is completed and commissioned, we will be one of only two companies capable of producing virtually all plate sizes that are in demand in the USA today,” explains Johnny Jacobs, Vice President & General Manager, Nucor Steel Brandenburg.
The SMS Group congratulates Nucor on the start of construction and looks forward to continuing the good cooperation. To convey the dimension of the new continuous caster to the visitors of the groundbreaking ceremony, the SMS Group produced an animated film which was played during the ceremony.
