The works of Ferriera Valsabbia operate in continuous cycles, with these phases:
- Smelting of scrap metal
- Production of billets
- Production of reinforcing bars
Each phase – whether scrap selection, smelting, rolling, packaging, or chemical, geometric and radiometric controls – is crucial to the quality of the final product.
Raw material
The quality of our products starts right from the selection of raw material: enormous volumes of extremely high-quality steel from industrial machinings, large demolitions and carefully selected, reclaimed scrap.
Steel production
When first arriving at Ferriera Valsabbia after meticulous selection and recycling of the raw materials, steel scrap loads undergo an initial radiometric control. By means of baskets, they are then loaded into the smelting furnace and brought to the liquid state in a matter of minutes.
The new fume suction and filtering system drastically reduces the environmental impact and enables to assess the excellent quality of the scrap loads used through chemical and radiometric controls.
Billet production
The molten metal is transferred from the smelting furnace to the ladle. Samples are taken for accurate chemical and radiometric analyses to determine precisely the characteristics of each steel casting.
The ladle then reaches the continuous casting plant, the liquid steel is poured into special copper ingot moulds and left to solidify in a controlled fashion to take the form of billets, the semi-finished product ready for subsequent rolling.
Reinforcing bars production
The reheating furnace, required to bring the billet to rolling temperature, operates on a continuous cycle and is powered directly by the heat recovered from the continuous casting plant and by natural gas burners. By so doing, great energy savings are achieved and environmental impact is remarkably reduced.
In the rolling mill, a series of calibrated cylinders gradually bring the billets to the desired shape and diameter, up to the most delicate stage: the cooling of the bar. The rigorously monitored continuous in-line hardening and tempering treatment is crucial to ensuring optimum characteristics of the products.
The bars thus obtained then pass to the cutting and confectionary stage, where after a final radiometric check on leaving Valsabbia, they are shipped to sites around the world.