High speed rail
Precisely in the field of iron and steel, the Spanish rail is enshrined as a key piece of the railroad and reason whereby the trains can move 350 kilometers per hour. "Steel manufactured in Spain not only rail ensures speed the train, but also maximum security", says Víctor Ruiz, commercial director of rail and special profiles of ArcelorMittal.
The rail is ArcelorMittal. The factory of the group in Gijón (Asturias, Northern Spain) specialises in the production of Rails for high-speed able to unite in little more than two hours Madrid with Barcelona, located at the same distance separating Los Angeles and San Francisco, in the United States. To get an idea of the achieved time savings, a trip by car from Madrid to Barcelona takes more than six hours.
The line between Madrid and Barcelona was opened in early 2008, and is one of the main landmarks of the Spanish rail network of high-speed, aroused interest all over the world. AcerlorMittal began to produce this type of Rails in 1990, coinciding with the development of the network of high speed in Spain, which allowed him to gain extensive experience in this area so specialized.
So far, the Group has produced a million and a half tons of high-speed rail for Spain, France, Portugal, Germany, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Morocco. Its advanced technology allows you to present to the world's most demanding award competitions.
But how this innovative rail is manufactured? According to Ruiz, "it is a steel product of great complexity for its technical design, its manufacturing process and by the high demand of the railways in their performance."
Rail train of lamination processes the blooms, some blocks of steel square section of up to eight meters long, manufactured in steelworks of Gijón (North of Spain). Already within the rolling mill, the blooms are heated in a natural gas oven up to 1,100 degrees Celsius. The bloom then passed several times between a few scattered steel cylinders in three cases of lamination that are shaping it until it acquires the form of a lane with a maximum length of 90 meters long. A saw cut it to the dimensions required by the customer. After cooling in a special beds, each one of the lanes is processed by two straightening machines. Control systems throughout the installation guarantees the quality of the final product.
"The implementation of rail for high-speed lines is invested heavily in the development of product due to the demanding conditions imposed in terms of safety, comfort, durability, cost and minimum acoustic impact", says Víctor Ruiz.
