Page 55 - Best of 2019 English

more powerful rescue cutters so as to be able to cut through the high-strength steels encountered in new vehicles. By contrast, the spreader lifts or pushes – so it is used in elevator rescue when the doors have to be pushed apart, for example.
Another marvel made of steel is the special CO2 extinguishing system in the roller container for the "swap body vehicle” – which the non-expert would simply call a fire engine. It consists of three batteries with 20 cylinders each, containing a total of 1,800 kg of carbon dioxide. The plant uses CO2 where water is not an option to extinguish fires, such as in electrical systems or ducts. “The gas is 1.52 times heavier than air, so it displaces the oxy- gen and suffocates the fire,” says Thomas Düerkop, head of the plant fire service in Salzgitter.
Steel has a very different function in the coil warehouse: here, extremely heavy loads have to be safely lifted and moved. Every month, Salzgit- ter Flachstahl packs and loads 10,000 coils in the Surface and Cold-Rolling Mill sectors alone. This requires more than just safe cranes and vehicles. The coils are held together by steel strips and fixed by steel coil troughs. Load safety on trucks and freight cars likewise requires a great deal of care – and would be inconceivable without steel. “We haven’t had a truck accident to date that was caused by loading errors,” says Michael Hecker, plant manager in the Cold Flat-Rolled sector.
This is also a result of rigorous occupational safety requirements. Employee behavior is abso- lutely crucial here. “Accidents caused by technical defects tend to be isolated incidents,” says Elke Sebold-Tanski. As the expert responsible for occupational safety at Salzgitter Flachstahl and
in the Group as a whole, she says that routine is a particular safety hazard: “We easily underestimate the danger involved in the activities we’re used to performing.” Her work is showing signs of success, including campaigns such as “For the love of steel”: the number of accidents at the steelworks has been declining for years.
One critical point in the coil warehouse is loading: the coil has to be lifted precisely into the loading recesses. Cranes and belts made of steel provide steady control
Safe with steel in your shoes
Every employee of a manufacturing company wears safety shoes as part of their personal protective equipment (PPE). Inside these shoes, invisibly integrated steel protects the foot from injury. The world market leader for the machines on which these are produced is DESMA Schuhmaschinen GmbH: Some 80 % of all safety
shoes manufactured worldwide are produced using equipment made by the Salzgitter AG subsidiary. Atlas Schuhfabrik in Dortmund, for instance – a leading manufacturer of industry-specific safety shoes in Europe – produces some 12,000 pairs per day, or 2.4 million per year.
The steel sole and cap of a safety shoe protect the foot from injury
STEEL AS A LIFE-SAVER 55
Photo: DESMA