Bar mill DC drives upgrade in 6 days

Gerdau upgraded the main DC drives of its bar mill located in Cartersville in GA, USA. The commissioning occurred in just six days downtime.

The scope of the upgrade included replacing the main DC drives of the bar mill from the ABB DCS600 to DCS800. Even though the upgrade was from the same drive family, due to the various sizes and configurations, it was necessary to propose solutions for each case, seeking the best technological improvement while minimizing the investment.

The proposed solution is based on using DCR upgrade kits, which replace all electronic drive control while keeping intact the power stacks. The kits are highly modular, allowing the upgrade to be accomplished quickly.

Main Benefits to DCR Upgrade Kits

• Gerdau Cartersville mill obtained the high performance offered by ABB DCS800 drives without having to change the power stacks, thus optimizing the economic investment
• Replaced obsolete equipment and software, which was expensive to maintain due to the high price of spare parts replacement for discontinued equipment
• Established a standard and transparent communication path between the PLCs and standard drives, expanding the communication capabilities of these systems with other external control systems.