Equipment Report

Tube City LLC, Glassport, Pa., has acquired Scrap OptiMiser Associates, developer of the Scrap OptiMiser ferrous scrap computer-purchasing model.

Tube City Chairman and CEO I. Michael Coslov says the OptiMiser purchase closes the loop in Tube City’s scrap management program for steel mills and foundries. Tube City has licensed the OptiMiser computer model for the past nine years.

Under terms of the agreement, Scrap OptiMiser owners Bob W. Martin and Roy Whipp are affiliated with Tube City. Martin and Whipp, who market the Scrap OptiMiser out of the Chicago area, developed and introduced the software in 1995.

Steel mills use the model to determine what grades of scrap to buy to make scrap charge menus.

Tube City has been licensing OptiMiser, an off-line program, to use on the front-end of its on-line, real-time model, GenBlend+, which it has developed during the past five years for use in basic oxygen steelmaking furnaces.

Chuck Johnsen, director of software engineering for Tube City, says his team, working with Martin and Whipp, can now combine the two programs into one that will ultimately provide an integrated scrap management program for electric arc furnace (EAF) operators. Johnsen expects the new EAF model to be ready by the end of this year.

The OptiMiser/GenBlend+ combination will integrate the purchase of scrap based on the availability and price of various grades and with that information can create scrap-charging menus to determine real-time scrap charges to produce the lowest cost liquid steel in EAFs.

Columbus McKinnon (CM), Sarasota, Fla., has introduced the CM LiberatorTM, which it says has been developed exclusively for the liberation of rubber and wire from scrap tires. The machine has been under development and in testing for more than three years, the company reports.

The machine currently has three patents pending. One is for its rotor configuration, which moves material away from the ends of the rotors and toward the center of the cutting action, thus reducing wear to the ends of the rotor and the walls of the rotor housing.

Another pending patent is for the knife clamping system, which does not require any through-holes or threaded holes in the knives. This reduces the cost of manufacturing and allows for quick and easy knife changes, according to a CM news release.

The third patent applied for is for a "flow-through" design that allows the machine to purge itself of fine pieces of bead and tread steel before they get trapped between the rotor, rotor housing and screen.

Those interested in a demonstration or in additional information can contact Columbus McKinnon Corp. through www.cmshredders.com.