Recently, the first coil from the revamped Steckel mill production line of Yieh United Steel Corporation (Yusco), a leading steel enterprise in Taiwan, China, has been successfully rolled off the line. This landmark achievement relies on robust technical support from the automatic control team of the Institute of Engineering Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing (IET,USTB). As the overall responsible party for the full-line automatic control system of the project, the team leveraged self-developed intelligent control technologies with independent intellectual property rights to resolve industry-wide challenges, writing a brilliant chapter for high-end, intelligent and green integrated development of cross-strait steel industries.

Affiliated with E-United Group, Yieh United Steel is Taiwan, China’s first integrated stainless steel plant with complete production processes. The hot-tested Steckel mill line serves as its core strategic production line to break through bottlenecks in high-end steel products, targeting high-end stainless steel and carbon steel sectors with flexible integrated plate-and-coil processes, designed for an annual output of one million tons of steel coils and plates. The core technical challenges of the project lie in precise rolling control and stable quality assurance for multi-specification coils and plates. Drawing on nearly 30 years of experience in metallurgical automation technology, the IET,USTB automatic control team took full charge of the full-chain design, supply and commissioning of automatic control systems for the project. Supported by two national-level platforms, the team adopted self-developed hot tandem rolling intelligent control technologies to address multiple common industry pain points and guarantee stable operation of the production line.

During project implementation, the team was stationed on-site at Yieh United Steel throughout the Spring Festival, a traditional Chinese reunion holiday. Putting collective interests above personal family gatherings, the team overcame numerous difficulties including inconvenient material allocation and tight staffing during the holiday. They customized optimized control schemes while conducting remote coordination and on-site commissioning simultaneously, implementing a 24-hour technical support mechanism. Working day and night to precisely manage every technical detail, the team ensured smooth completion of commissioning work.

The self-developed intelligent control system breaks foreign technological monopolies, representing a successful practice of integrated industry-university-research-application models. It also marks a major breakthrough for China’s self-developed metallurgical automatic control technologies in high-end steel projects in Taiwan, China, building a bridge for cross-strait industrial and technological exchanges. This cooperation stands as a model of collaborative innovation for cross-strait steel industries: Yieh United Steel consolidates its competitiveness in high-end markets, while IET,USTB extends its track record of overseas technology export. Upon full operation, the production line will inject new momentum into the steel processing market in Taiwan, China, and IET,USTB’s intelligent control technologies will continuously support Yieh United Steel’s upgrading in production capacity and product quality. Both sides will take this opportunity to deepen cooperation, with IET,USTB focusing on technological innovation and Yieh United Steel advancing high-end R&D and green manufacturing, jointly drawing a blueprint for high-quality development of cross-strait steel industries.

A New Year Starts with New Endeavors; Solid Work Creates a Promising Future

The automatic control team of IET,USTB will continue to take technological innovation as its core driving force, deepen cross-strait industrial cooperation, and maintain vigorous R&D in metallurgical intelligent control to contribute more technical strength to integrated cross-strait industrial development.