You can taste the salt in the air. You can sense the sea. A windmill rotates on the dyke. Directly on the North Sea, north-west from Amsterdam. But here there is not just the tourist idyll, but also the only steelworks in the Netherlands can be found here. Put more precisely, in IJmuiden, in the province of North Holland. Over 8,000 people work on this side of the dyke in an area the size of a medium-sized provincial town. And numerous industrial service providers work in that area and deal with, for example, the removal and processing of the slag produced by the steel production process. It is a by-product of steel manufacture and is used, for example, as the subgrade in road construction.

你可以感觉到空气中的咸味，感受到大海，风车在堤坝上旋转。至北海边上，从阿姆斯特丹到西北方向，这里不仅有旅游圣地般的田园风光，还有荷兰唯一的钢铁厂。更准确地说，其位于北荷兰省的伊穆伊登。在一个中等规模的省会城镇大小的地区，有8000多人在堤坝的这一边工作。也有许多工业服务提供商在该领域工作，例如，清除和加工处理钢铁生产过程中产生的炉渣，它是钢铁制造的副产品，被用于公路建设中的路基。

Graphite dust in the air

空气中的石墨粉尘

In the past, the slag was collected in large ladles and moved to the edge of the site. There, massive gantry cranes emptied the containers in the open air so that the slag could cool before being processed. The disadvantage of this method was the production of huge amounts of graphite dust, which the inhabitants of the neighbouring community of Wijk aan Zee had to suffer from. And the fine graphite dust that arose is not only dirty. It also contains numerous harmful substances such as manganese, lead and vanadium. Continuing complaints by the citizens therefore led to the method being banned by the regional government in the spring of 2019.

以往，大型容器装满炉渣，转移到作业现场旁边。在那里，龙门吊在露天清空了容器，熔渣在加工前冷却。这种方法的缺点是产生大量的石墨粉尘，邻近社区的居民不得不忍受这种粉尘。而产生的细石墨粉尘不仅很脏，它还含有许多有害物质，如锰、铅和钒。因此，居民的持续投诉导致该作业方式在2019年春季被地方政府禁止。

Processes completely changed

“We were thus forced to do something quickly” explains a member of the project team, “and decided to completely change the existing process.” The solution? The building of a new hall to reduce the dust levels to zero using complex filter systems.

项目团队的一名成员说到：“为此，我们必须尽快采取行动，并决定彻底改变现有流程。”解决方案是建造一个室内空间，使用复杂的过滤系统将灰尘降到零。

At the same time, the customer wanted KAUP to make the slag disposal not only cleaner, but also redesign it to become more modern and fit for the future. Individual transport containers known as skips would replace the traditional ladles. “However, a new handling problem resulted from this” report other project team members. “After all, the skips can hold up to 23 tonnes of slag and needed to be emptied by a fork lift truck rather than a stationary device”. In addition, a fork lift truck would offer a range of application possibilities. “But until now such a large attachment did not exist for fork lift trucks that met our demands” continues the disposal professional, “which is where KAUP came in.”

与此同时，客户希望KAUP提供的解决方案，不仅能更加彻底的清除炉渣，而且需重新设计，使其更现代化，适合未来需求。未来，单独运输的集装箱将取代传统的容器。项目人员提到，“但是，这样又引发了一些系列新的问题。毕竟，容器需承载多达23吨的炉渣，需要使用叉车来搬运并清空，而不是固定式装置清空，并且叉车需提供额外的功能。但至此，满足我们要求的叉车还未配置合适的如此巨大的属具。” 专业人员继续说到，“这就是为什么需要KAUP专业属具的原因.”

Challenging design and production