The Plant “Energosteel” was put into operation in June 2007. Nowadays JSC “Energoprogress” manages its activity. The main specialization of the plant is steel grinding balls production for the supplying for cement works, power plants, ore mining and processing industrial complexes, refractory bricks and other enterprises of Ukraine, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and other foreign countries.

The Plant “Energosteel” is located in large industrial region of Ukraine – Kharkov region (Komsomolsky).

The choice of location was not casual. In addition to the range of production moments, we took into account the following factors:

The plant was built using the most recent equipment. Technology of the ball production is billet rolling in screw gauges. With that end in view we have acquired hot rolling machine ShPS 30-100 with its output 39.000 tons per year. This rolling machine was produced in 2006 by OJSC “Electrostalskiy plant of heavy engineering” (“EPHE”). This is the only manufacturer of rolling machines, which have retained its monopoly since 1951 not only on European territory.

Induction furnace was designed and supplied by Russian research institute of high frequency currents n.a. V.V. Vologdin (St. Petersburg) especially for mentioned ball-rolling mill. It is indeed one of the leading science institutes and well-known in the world for designing cutting-edge technology and equipment based on microprocessor systems.

The method of balls rolling on the hot rolling machines is one of the most contemporary and economical methods of production and has a number of significant advantages compared to casting and forging ones. Casting or forging of the balls are not very efficient (mainly manual manufacture), and are accompanied by significant loss of the metal (in the process of pouring, at the fin during forging). Transversal rolling of balls from the round billet is economical. It differs from other methods due to the possibility to produce grinding balls on the continuous automated aggregates, that allows 2-8 times to increase the output and reduce the consumption of metal by 10-15%.

Incoming control of billet. For the production of grinding balls the Plant “Energosteel” uses round rolled metal from carbonaceous and alloyed steel, produced by leading Russian and Ukrainian metallurgical companies according to GOST 2540-88 «Hot-rolled steel round bar (assortment)» and GOST 1050-88 «Special calibrated iron specially conditioned on surface made of quality carbonaceous constractional steel: general technical conditions».

Before the industrial process the bill passes through the thorough control on conformity to the given geometrical parameters and chemical composition. With this aim an attested laboratory of metals is created at the plant.

Heating of billet. Heating is performed in modern inductive heating furnace, which ensures accurate temperature of rods at the outlet. Most ball manufacturers use gas furnaces which have a lot of significant shortcomings compared to inductive smelting furnace:

•          they don’t give opportunity to  heat bill evenly for the accurate rolling and necessary hardening because of its large lifetime;

•           in the process of billet heating in the gas furnace the cinder layer is formed on the surface. It leads to the steel decarbonization, and thus to the loss of balls surface hardness and strength;

•          work of gas furnaces doesn’t envisage stops with a view to fix mills bucket and for other production needs, because it leads to a breach of internal lining. Absense of the breaking of the gas furnaces hampers the tuning of balls rolling complex and tempering in the production process;

•          using of induction heating minimizes expenses on energy resources and reduces the risk of price increase due to changing state of gas market in Ukraine.

Rolling of grinding balls. After heating billet enters the inlet of screw gauges where it is rolled to balls.

Thermal treatment. Rolled balls come from screw gauges outlet to shelfs of the quenching drum through the inclined chute. After the quenching bath tempered balls come into package where self-tempering of the balls before loading takes place.

Grinding media control. Certain quantity of grinding balls is picked out from the each consignment during the production chain. Each ball is tested by measuring its surface and volumetric hardness, microstructure and metallographic analysis of necessity. The implementation of the methodology of the balls crash-proof testing at pile-driver installation have been finfshed.

Packing of grinding media. Products are loaded in big-begs in 1-1,5 tn; in bulk; on customer request in metal drums, wooden crates and in bulk with covering under shields.