On 17th November, 2011 IIM Raipur students had the opportunity to visit Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP).

Majority of the students were visiting any plant for first time, thus the energy and enthusiasm fever was at its high. At around 8:30 am all the students departed from Institute main gate towards Bhilai steel plant. After reaching there we were welcomed by DGM HR of BSP who coordinated and completed all the formalities required for the industrial visit. We first visited the Blast furnace area which is used to produce iron from iron ore. Blast furnace is a counter current heat and mass exchanger, in which solid raw materials are charged from the top of the furnace and hot blast is sent through the bottom via tuyeres. In the blast furnace process iron ore and reducing agents (coke,coal) are transformed to hot metal and slag is formed. Hot metal and liquid slag do not mix and remain separate from each other and with the slag floating on top of the denser iron. The iron is then separated from the slag in the cast house and then send to LD converter for refining the iron( i.e lowering the carbon content so that iron is converted into forgeable steel). The slag removed is further processed in slag granulation plants into small solid granules which is then sold to cement manufacturers. We then visited Plate mill which gave us the idea about various types of flat products that BSP produces through a sequence of operations. It includes slab heating, descaling, rolling, levelling, cooling, inspection and shearing to required size. Heating of slabs is done in three continuous double row pusher type furnaces with an estimated capacity of 120 T/hr each. These furnaces have five heating zones: Soaking Zone, top and bottom preheating zone, top and bottom heating zone. The soaking zone has a flat roof with sixteen small capacity vertical burners through the roof. The other four zones have six burners each. Mixed gas of calorific value 2500 K cal/cum is used as a fuel. Heated slabs are passed through the Hydraulic descaler. Here the scale formed during the process of heating will be washed off by means of water spray at a pressure of about 150170 atm. The rolling complex consists of one reversible vertical edger, one reversible four high roughing and one four high reversible finishing stand. The vertical edger placed before the roughing stand helps in the production of plates with good edges. This ensures minimum side trimming losses and increases net yield. The vertical edger is driven by two 1800 KW motors placed on top of the stand itself. The roughing and finishing stands are made of stationery closed top roof housings. These are designed for a maximum rolling force of 4500 tonnes. The working rolls of the roughing and finishing stands are driven by two 4000 KW and two 6300 KW motors. The maximum speeds of rolling in these stands are 3.5 m and 6 m/sec respectively. Heavy plates (63-120mm) are finished in the roughing stand and they are drawn away from the rolling line to the heavy plate bay with the help of transfer cars. These are cooled and then cut to required size by flame cutting machines.Lighter plates (5-60 mm) are rolled to the required thickness in the finishing stand. After rolling the front and back ends are cut using the hot crop shear, which is a cross cut shear with a cutting force of 1250 T is of down cut type. After hot shearing the plates are levelled, cooled, inspected and cut to required widths and lengths. Levelling is also done by roller type levellers with small working rolls supported by back-up rolls. Lighter gauges (5-20mm) cools fast and hence they are levelled at leveller-1 placed immediately after hot shear. Heavier gauge plates (21-60mm) do not cool faster and hence these are levelled at leveller-II placed after the hot transfer bed. This process also helps in reducing the internal stresses developed during rolling. This visit gave the IIM Raipur students a hands on experience on the practical functionality of a steel plant and thus gave a brief idea of an industry life.