Above: Heidtman Steel installed a gauge measurement tool onto its 78-inch-wide slitter in East Chicago, Indiana.

Processor boosts quality and consistency by upgrading measurement tool

May 2017 - Heidtman Steel, based in Toledo, is a fast-growing flat-rolled processing company with an ever expanding base of equipment, systems and services designed to cater to a vast array of customers, geographies and end-use applications. 

One way to ensure consistent quality across the large volumes of materials it processes day to day is to employ a thickness measurement gauge. 

“Heidtman Steel has been utilizing thickness gauges since the 1980s,” says Ben Shinkle, director of engineering. “They are part of our backbone and ensure our customers receive material that is the proper gauge. They are a critical part of our quality control system, providing necessary documentation for our customers and certifications.”

The company, says Shinkle, has put Advanced Gauging Technologies thickness gauges on 10 slitting lines and one pickling line. Most recently, Heidtman Steel’s East Chicago, Indiana, plant commissioned a new AGT400. The new unit is installed on a 78-inch-wide Alcos slitter and measures steel with a thickness range of 0.015 inch to 0.25 inch.

The AGT400 isotope thickness mea-surement and SPC Reporting System is designed specifically for the metals industry.

“We run a wide variety of steels on our lines, from low-carbon grades all the way up to advanced high strength and ultra-high strength steels, hot-rolled and cold-rolled, etc.,” says Shinkle. “Because our products are used in a wide variety of applications, it is critical that our materials are the proper thickness to ensure they will not fail while in service. Our automotive products, in particular, must meet some rather strict criteria.”

Heidtman operates facilities in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, offering such services as pickling, slitting, galvanizing/Galvannealing, leveling and cutting to length, tempering/one-pass blanking and multi-blanking, coil edging and surface descaling.  

Heidtman slits hot-rolled and hot-rolled pickled & oiled steels as thick as 0.625 inch and tandem products as thin as 0.01 inch. The width range for slit coils varies from 1 inch up to 78 inches.

Fast readouts

The AGT400 isotope thickness measurement and SPC Reporting System is designed specifically for the metals industry, according to Advanced Gauging Technologies, Plain City, Ohio. The AGT400 provides fast and reliable thickness measurements and SPC reporting for strip and sheet material, using current computer technology.

Direct benefits realized through these measurements include documented compliance with ISO:9002 and other quality specifications, improved process control, increased productivity, and scrap reduction. 

The standard system also provides disk storage and easy recall of all coil SPC information, which eliminates the need to maintain large volumes of paper for long-term record-keeping purposes, according to the manufacturer.

How it works

The equipment operates according to the scientific principle that a low power radiation beam is absorbed by matter at a rate varying with its composition and thickness. As the material passes between the radiation source and detector, thickness variations cause measurable changes in the amount of radiation reaching the detector head. The system is calibrated based on these variations, allowing it to provide continuous, high-speed, non-contact, accurate and reliable thickness measurements.

Typical installation requires a C-frame mounted on an I-beam and/or a pair of pedestals. The material being processed passes between the top and bottom arms of the C-frame. High-speed electronics and logarithms ensure highly accurate readings of various materials. A simplified hardware configuration and a fast and accurate calibration cycle, called ISOcal, maintains the reliability of the AGT400. Alloy-specific calibration curves, coupled with an AutoComp feature, permit extremely accurate measurements of a wide variety of material compositions and coatings.

The system automatically generates several reports and all coil data is automatically stored to disk.

The AGT400 shows operators the sheet thickness in millimeters; coil width and diameter; the desired gauge range; and alerts them to any deviations from the norm.

Reporting features

The coil report presents a graphic representation of strip thickness over the coil length, in strip chart fashion, and indicates location of out of tolerance material. This report presents a histogram of thickness distribution, footage, weight, average thickness, and other coil features. A defect summary report presents a usable summary of each defect type, along with its respective location in the coil. The shift summary report presents a period summary of production, available automatically at regularly scheduled times, or on demand. Other reports check power supply, diagnostics for troubleshooting, and system setups. Coil mapping allows inspectors a way to log strip defects as they are spotted. This feature is available in single or dual handheld keypad configurations, for one or two-sided inspection lines.

Preferred supplier

According to Shinkle, “Advanced Gauging was the preferred supplier when I joined the company in 2001 and they’ve never given us any reason to look elsewhere. Their gauges have proven to be accurate and reliable, and any service requirements are handled professionally.”

He credits Advanced Gauging’s president, Scott Cook, with putting together a team that “offers an excellent product with matching service at a fair price. I consider them one of our top suppliers in this ever changing, demanding marketplace.”

He deems AGT’s service and support as “excellent. They’ve helped us support numerous legacy gauges with upgraded electronics, and are there for us when we run into problems,” says Shinkle. The AGT team has even dealt “with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Heidtman’s behalf on occasion.”

Shinkle says that Heidtman is also looking into Advanced Gauging’s AGT800 model, which uses laser technology to measure material thickness.

According to the manufacturer, the AGT800 is an optical measuring system. Two non-contact, high-precision semi-conductor laser sensors are mounted above and below the strip [on a C-frame], and their beams are focused on the same spot on the target material. Each sensor emits a Class II laser beam and receives the beam back on a RS-CMOS pixel array. The gauge determines the distance to the target material and precise material thickness is then calculated. The system is calibrated based on this data, allowing it to provide continuous, high speed, non-contact, accurate and reliable thickness measurements.

“In addition to providing our customers with the correct materials, we also utilize the gauges to check that the mills are supplying us with proper incoming material,” Shinkle notes. “We work with mills on a worldwide basis,” and each has “varying degrees of gauge management.” All the more reason to take quality control in house and select a measurement tool supplier that provides the solution, service and support to back it all up. MM