EN 10248 GU6N – GU23N Steel Sheet Piles

1. Raw Material Heating

• The Process: Steel semi-finished products, usually heavy blooms or rectangular slabs, are loaded into a walking-beam reheating furnace.

• The Goal: The steel is uniformly heated to an optimal rolling temperature (typically between 1100°C and 1250°C) to maximize its malleability and ductility for shaping.

2. Rough Rolling & Breakdown

• The Process: The incandescent steel slab passes through a heavy breakdown mill or roughing stand (often a reversible rolling mill) multiple times.

• The Goal: The initial thick slab is progressively reduced in cross-section and elongated into a preliminary profile, often referred to as a "dog-bone" or beam-blank shape.

3. Universal Finishing Rolling

• The Process: The pre-shaped steel passes through a sophisticated universal rolling mill train equipped with both horizontal and vertical rollers that apply pressure simultaneously.

• The Goal: This is the critical stage where the final profile geometry—such as U-shape, Z-shape, or Flat/Straight web type—is formed with precise dimensional accuracy, including the highly critical, tight-tolerance interlocks on both edges.

4. Cooling and Straightening

• The Process: The continuous hot-rolled steel profile is sectioned by hot saws and transferred to a cooling bed. Once cooled to ambient temperature, the sections are processed through a multi-roller straightening machine.

• The Goal: Cooling stabilizes the micro-metallurgical structure, while the cold-straightening process eliminates any thermal warping, twisting, or bending to ensure perfectly straight profiles.

5. Cutting, Inspection & Finishing

• The Process: The straightened sheet piles are cold-sawed to exact customer-specified lengths. Quality control teams perform rigorous ultrasonic and dimensional testing, particularly on the interlock tolerances and surface quality.

• The Goal: To ensure seamless clutching performance during on-site driving. Optional post-processing—such as drilling lifting holes, applying anti-corrosion coatings, or injecting interlock sealants—is completed here prior to bundling and shipping.