Welcome to Kuhn Special Steel North America

world class reliable solutions in stainless steel!

Welcome to Kuhn Special Steel North America

About Us

Since 2016 Kuhn Special Steel North America, Inc. is part of the Kuhn Special Steel family. Besides the North American sales department, Kuhn Special Steel has production facilities in Germany and Taiwan.

Kuhn Special Steel was founded in 1960 and is a second generation family owned business. We have grown to more than 300 employees and are a world-class manufacturer of centrifugally cast pre-machined or finished high alloyed steel components according to customer specifications. This is combined with metallurgy excellence to provide superior solutions for most applications. We serve more than 40 different markets worldwide, including separation, energy, automotive, power generation, marine/shipbuilding and many more.

Our foundry is equipped with 15 horizontal and 4 vertical casting machines. The large inventory of more than 750 moulds commonly allows us to avoid tooling charges to keep your total costs low. We are able to cast up to 11,000 lb and from 3” diameter up to 90” diameter. A length up to 170” can be realized in a single piece, however, even longer parts are possible when using our world class welding capability. Precise finishing in accordance with customer drawings is done in our well-equipped machine shop that among others disposes two 5-axis machining centres as well as fourteen 4-axis CNC lathes for milling, drilling, and honing.

We look forward to your most difficult challenges and will be pleased to show you what we can do.

For more information about the whole group please refer to www.kuhn-special-steel.com.

Fields of application

We serve more than 40 different markets worldwide. The variety of our products is virtually unlimited, ranging from small items measuring only a few inches and weighing just ounces to products with a length of several yards weighing several tons. We are prepared to meet your requirements: According to your individual drawings we will manufacture the perfect component in our state-of-the-art foundry and machining facility.

Examples of markets we serve:

Steel Rolls for Continuous Casting Lines

Applications
Continues Casting Lines for: ingot, bloom, beam-blank and billet steel plants.

Components
Roller assemblies and guide rollers for all parts of continuous casting lines, with or without internal cooling, in mono-cast or bi-metal version.

Special requirements of the materials used
Depending on application and segment: Very high wear-resistance, high corrosion-resistance, heat-resistance, resistance to thermal fatigue and good welding properties.

Components for Milling and Grinding machines

Applications
Bead mills in highly corrosive or abrasive applications (food, paint, coating, mining). Dispersers. Wet grinding machines. Circulation mill Systems. Horizontal disk mill systems. Agitator bead mills.

Components
Rotors, stators, clamping rings and bases, milling cylinders, roller.

Special requirements of the materials used
Very high wear-resistance, high corrosion-resistance and combination of this.

Galvanizing Rolls

Applications
Continuous Galvanizing Lines for zinc or aluminium coating on continuously processed steel strips.

Components
Pot rolls, bath rolls, stabilizing rolls, furnace rolls, conductor rolls.

Special requirements of the materials used
High accuracy and finish to avoid vibrations, corrosion-resistance in liquid zinc or aluminium alloys, high surface finish.

Decanters and fluid separation

Applications
Pharmaceutical industry, biotech sector, treatment of liquid sewage and paint slurry, preparation of cooling emulsions, plastics recycling, food industry.

Components
Decanter bowls (pre- and finished machined) from 4 to 40 inches, conical and cylindrical hubs, welded components ready to assemble, scroll (worm-feed) assemblies and components.

Special requirements of the materials used
Depending on application: extreme toughness, high corrosion-resistance, high wear-resistance, good welding properties, highly precise machined condition.

Food Processing

Applications
Mechanical engineering for the food sector, circular cutters, flange rings, feed-system components, blade shafts; casings, perforated-drum driers, shelling rollers, axle mountings.

Components
Pre-machined rings, bushings; drawing components.

Special requirements of the materials used
Authorized for use in the food industry, corrosion-resistant.

Marine and ship building

Applications
Rudder mechanisms, drive systems, periscope and shaft tubes and liners.

Components
Rudder-shaft casings, liners, rudder-pintle casings, support rings, articulation rings, articulation bushes, stern tubes, shaft brackets, sleeves, seals, sealing bushes, bushings for bow thrusters, articulated rods for rudder mechanisms, shaft tubes for periscopes and antennas.

Special requirements of the materials used
Steel with increased strength, toughness and corrosion-resistance properties, anti-magnetic stainless steels.

Hydraulic cylinders and Accumulators

Applications
Hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders (among others for marine and offshore, subsea or industrial use), rotary actuators, piston accumulators, pressure vessels, sub-sea cylinders, heavy duty cylinders.

Components
Pre-  and finished machined high alloyed tubes, stainless steel tubes, honed barrels, cylinder barrels, bore cylinders, special cylinders.

Special requirements of the materials used
Steel with increased strength, toughness and corrosion-resistance properties, anti-magnetic stainless steels.

Valve Seat Rings

Applications
Large low-speed diesel engines, marine drive systems as well as stationary power plants and auxiliary engines.

Components
Inlet and outlet valve-seat rings.

Special requirements of the materials used
High resistance to heat (up to 204°F) and corrosion. Different sorts of fuel, such as diesel, heavy fuel oil, sulphur-free fuels and even gas, do not reduce lifetime.

Pump and Valves

Applications
Plant construction, chemicals, petrochemicals, long-distance energy, potash industry, food and beverage industry, pharmaceuticals, oil & gas industry, cement and construction-material industry, gas supply, water and sewage-treatment, environmental technology, surface-finishing technology, heat-transfer and refrigeration circuits, processing technology, marine, fossil-fuel power stations, renewable energies, nuclear power stations, water transport, transport and treatment of liquid industrial waste, mining, oil-sand industry, dredging, heating/air-conditioning/ventilation.

Components
Balls, segment balls, seat rings, flanges, perforated-drum driers, twin-ball housings, seal mountings, clamping rings, spacer rings, tubes, bushings, thrust rings, split rings, shaft seals, spacer seals, motor housing, housing inserts, inlet rings, bottom rings, seal covers.

Special requirements of the materials used
Depending on application: Extreme toughness, high resistance to corrosion, high wear-resistance, good welding properties, highly resistance to chemicals, resistance to high and low temperatures, stability when under pressure and high resistance to cavitation.

Production capacity

 Horizontal CastingVertical Casting
Minimum outer diameter3"3"
Maximum outer diameter47"90"
Total casting length15 ft*6 ft*
Maximum casting weight11,000 lb11,000 lb
Heat treatment2280°F2280°F
Quenching mediumAir, water, or oilAir, water or oil
*Fabrication length up to 30ft.

Centrifugal casting

As a full service manufacturing facility, we complement our high-tech centrifugal casting foundry with an ultramodern machining facility to offer our customers perfect solutions from a single source. To manufacture individual products based on customer drawings, we additionally offer onsite heat treating, machining including milling, drilling, and honing and extended testing facilities.

schleuderguss

Centrifugal casting process

In the centrifugal casting process, molten steel is poured into a rotating mould. This mould can be rotating on a horizontal (for cylindrical tubular shapes) or a vertical axis (for rings, conical or short cylindrical shapes). During the casting process, a maximum force of 120 times the force of gravity is applied to the metal. Thanks to the centrifugal separation produced by the force “G”, less dense material, including impurities, “floats” to the inner diameter and can be removed by subsequent machining. Solidification of the metal occurs directionally from the outside diameter to the inside diameter resulting in a very pure defect-free structure, comparable with forged material in terms of its characteristics.

Centrifugal casting combines the very high quality and excellent mechanical properties of forged steel with the flexibility and cost efficiency of traditional castings. If it is suitable in terms of geometry, centrifugal casting is your first choice for stainless steel components that have to withstand high loads such as pressure, temperature or aggressive media.

Video of the centrifugal casting

Foundry

Our foundry is equipped with seven medium-frequency induction crucible furnaces with a capacity of 990 lb to 4,600 lb, and a collective capacity of up to 18,700 lb, for the processing of metals. Output of up to two tons per hour guarantees maximum flexibility for individual customer requirements. After the melting procedure, each batch is subjected to a spectral analysis of its composition, and carefully inspected to ensure compliance with the corresponding standards or customer specifications.

In order to be able to process this molten metal, our foundry is equipped with ten horizontal and four vertical centrifugal casting machines, designed to produce rotationally symmetrical components with diameters of between 3" and 50", in lengths ranging from 50" to 170".

Pictures of the foundry

Machining

CNC turningConventional turning
More than 50 CNC turning machines, including:
  • 12 heavy lathes
  • 4 vertical lathes
  • 4 machining centres
  • 14 4-axis CNC lathes
More than 30 conventional machines, including:
  • 4 heavy lathes
  • 6 Boehringer DUE 800
  • 6 deep hole boring machines
WeldingHoning
2 SAW machines for joint welding
  • diameter: 5.90" – 125.98"
  • length: 39.37" – 314.96"
  • weld depth: 0.47" – 7.87"
Welding procedures including SAW, TIG, SMAW, MIG, MAG.
Honing machines including
  • 1 inside honing machine
  • 1 outside honing machine
  • 1 vertical honing machine

Video of the Machining

Pictures of the Machining

Research & Development / Quality Control

Together with our customers as well as in the context of internal research projects, our R&D team is constantly working on projects to design new or modify existing stainless steel alloys.

Alongside a wide range of stainless steels, we also produce nickel-based alloys. These high performance materials are used wherever resistance to corrosion or high temperatures are prime requirements. To download our  material list, including more than 200 materials, please click here.

To ensure maximum quality, we have an extensive array of machinery in our modern equipped materials laboratory. As part of our materials development work and analysis of damage, we can quickly and expertly identify the relevant material characteristics such as chemical composition, microstructure, and mechanical properties. In particular cases requiring special inspection methods such as scanning an electron microscope incl. energy dispersive microanalysis, X-ray diffractometry, and inspection for wear and corrosion, we work hand in hand with well-known universities.

We would be happy to work for you on your particular application – so please get in touch with us! It will be a pleasure for us to advise your design, production and purchasing departments about questions on the best stainless steel to use for your particular purpose. We know all about the extensive subject of stainless steel and its many special types and we are only too pleased to put our expertise about this at your disposal!

Newsroom

  • Outlook for the year 2024

    The solid economic situation in our markets allows us to look to the new year with confidence. Continue reading

  • Centrifugal casting vs. Static casting

    What are the advantages of the centrifugal casting process? When is it better to resort to static casting? We give you a quick overview. Continue reading

  • Sustainability Report 2022

    Transparent description of our goals, measures and successes on the way to climate-neutral production in Germany. Continue reading

We will be glad to answer your questions. Contact us:

Phone +49 2195 671 0

sales@kuhn-northamerica.com

.Call directly