Page 52 - Best of STIL 2018 English

Top left: Unloading a coil, which is heaved directly by crane into one of the two coil warehouses.
Top right: The narrower sheets of metal are suspended in the coiler of the cut-to-length line
Bottom left: The cutting presses cut slugs from the wider sheets for making discs.
Bottom right: Packaging the finished wheels. One robot plucks as many as three wheels from the assembly line and places them on the pallet, another inserts a spacer made of plastic or cardboard between the layers
52 STEEL ROLLS
the wheel from corrosion. A black or silver-col- ored top coat is then applied. Depending on the customer and the order, the entire wheel may be coated or else the rim base is left uncoated. This does not alter anything in terms of the wheel’s quality, function or safety: the only difference is in its visual appearance.
The packaging work is taken care of by robots: two are required to stack a pallet. There are more than 100 robots in use at the plant in total, and all production processes supported, controlled and monitored by computers.
The pallets are stacked at least a meter high in the warehouses as well as throughout the plant grounds. A glance at the delivery notes reveals where the pallets will be heading: to the national and international production facilities of well- known vehicle manufacturers. Aluminum wheels are nowhere to be seen here – only steel wheels are produced in Königswinter.
Currently as many as 60 % of cars worldwide run on aluminum wheels. However, there are indi- cations that the automotive market might move back increasingly to using steel wheels. Electrically powered cars will require new wheel models: in this case, the wheels might be covered in order
to improve aerodynamics. In this case it wouldn’t matter if the wheels were made of steel or alumi- num because they would no longer be visible.
As a steel producer, Salzgitter AG supports the innovative strength of Maxion: new high-strength steels allow thinner wall thicknesses in wheel production, thereby saving weight. In some cases, modern steel wheels are lighter than those made of aluminum! Innovative steels and new production processes such as flow forming enable material thickness to be reduced at points where the wheel is subject to less strain. In a 15-inch wheel it is possible to save 200 g, in 16 and 17-inch wheels approx. 500 g and in a truck wheel as much as 3 kg.
Maxion Wheels and Salzgitter Flachstahl are currently collaborating closely on the construction of new flow forming facilities. Switching to new production process is not always a straightforward procedure. Sometimes the existing processes are simply not able to deliver the power required to shape high-quality steels. Different alloying addi- tions can cause problems, too. A different material can suddenly turn brittle during welding. This makes cooperation all the more important so that in future as many Maxion wheels go on the roads as possible that are made of Salzgitter steel.
Foto: Maxion
Fotos: Gunnar Garms