GMB Heavy Industries has recently and successfully completed the Engineering, Manufacture and Installation of the Feed, Entry, and Run-in Troughs at a steel mill in Ohio. In this project, our dedicated, engineering team, with an average of over 30 years experience in the steel mill industry, worked closely with the end user to custom design an Entry Trough to increase productivity, plant availability, and to reduce maintenance costs, along with unplanned downtimes. The GMB Heavy Industries team replaced the Entry Trough from the Shear to the Yard End of the Cooling Bed. Before starting the engineering phase, every component in the current Entry Trough area was accurately measured, to check conformance with the engineering drawings supplied by the customer.
Why Have we Changed the Entry Trough?
Our customer decided it would be to their benefit to replace their existing Entry Trough for several reasons. The existing Entry Trough was well worn as the mill has been in operation for decades. As a consequence, this wear led to ongoing cobbling of the products, and the Entry Trough also lacked the capacity to produce the full range of products the mill needed to manufacture. The GMB Team also designed and built the new Entry Trough to be more maintenance friendly. GMB has engineered, manufactured, and installed a variety of equipment in other mills operated by this customer. GMB is respected for its capacity, experience and the know-how that it employs to solve its customers’ problems.

Engineering, Design & Manufacturing of Entry Trough
In many applications, our engineers will design modifications and or additions to a customer’s existing equipment, in order to reduce operating costs and reduce downtime. A common motivation for making modifications to an existing mill is the need for faster throughput or a change in the range of products demanded by the market.
There are many benefits to changing this mill’s older design of Entry Trough to a new and custom-built Trough. The new Entry Tough is capable of running an expanded product line that has resulted in increased profitability for the mill. With the new Entry Trough, there are multiple means of adjustment that fine tune production. An important aspect of our solution was to create a product that is more maintenance friendly. We also designed the equipment with removable wear plates in order to reduce maintenance costs and down time.
The new Entry Trough includes cobble covers on the Feed Trough to contain cobbles. This feature will increase the safety of the mill workers throughout the full length of the Feed Trough. In order to increase separation between bars, we have designed additional drop walls that are spring assisted for easier operation. The new VF rolls in the trough were angled by ½ degree, to guide the products to the delivery side of the brake slide.
In order to decrease installation time on site, sub-assemblies were put together in advance at the GMB Plant. Then, to ensure a smooth site installation, GMB sent a team of 25 millwrights, supervisors, and a project manager to the mill. When installation was complete, the equipment was fully tested in operation.

Why Choose GMB for Your Steel Mill Engineering?
The GMB Team has been contracted by various mills, to supply solutions to a variety of design and production problems, in different areas of the mills. These have included the supply Furnace Components, Mill Stands, Rollers, Entry Troughs, Cooling Beds and other custom engineered products; all with a view to increasing productivity in the mills. Our qualified and experienced engineers are capable of engineering and manufacturing high quality machine components and fabrications for any steel mill throughout North America.
Contact Our Engineers today
If you have a requirement for new steel mill equipment, or are considering an upgrade to your existing equipment, or would simply appreciate an expert opinion on your existing equipment, GMB is here to help. With our dedicated and experienced team we are here to solve your problems, help you increase throughput, and save production costs. We provide extensive engineering services, along with specialty products and spare parts manufacturing, project management and installation/millwrighting services for steel mills in North America.

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