Acciaierie Valbruna, an Italian manufacturer of stainless steel bars and reinforcement, will promote its Reval bars and coils at the Big 5.

The company, which is happy with the response it received at the 2002 show, expects to further strengthen its position in the regional market at this year's event.
Acciaierie Valbruna, founded in 1925, is a world leader in the production of stainless steel, nickel and titanium alloys. The company employs 2,400 people and has an annual turnover of $400 million. It manufactures a wide and diversified range of products such as: round, square and hexagonal wire rod, cold drawn wire, round bars in different executions, hexagonal, flat and square bars and angle profiles.

Acciaierie Valbruna opened its branch office, known as Valbruna Gulf, in Dubai in July to cover the entire Gulf.
''Stainless steel is not a single specific grade of steel but a family of steels with a wide variety of characteristics with respect to physical and mechanical properties and resistance to corrosive environments. The useful properties of steel can be enhanced by decreasing carbon content, and increasing nitrogen, chromium, nickel and molybdenum contents,'' says a spokesman for the company.

Being corrosion free, Reval offers solutions to the problems of degradation, safety and maintenance. It is widely used in infrastructure such as roads, bridges, tunnels, marine infrastructure such as harbours, piers, jetties, and dams; renovation of monuments and buildings, earthquake and fire-resistant construction, refineries, military installations (submarine docks) and in buildings and laboratories requiring a non-magnetic structure.

''Reval also has several advantages over conventional steel such as a superior resistance to corrosion from chlorides, shock and seismic loading, fire and heat (compared to black bar), low-magnetic permeability, superior strength levels, durability, self-healing to abrasion and handling damage, resistance to localised corrosion mechanisms. It also offers outstanding ductility, even at high strength levels, has an expected service life in concrete of 100 years, is cost competitive over full life cycle cost analysis and has long shelf, storage and service life.

Valbruna Gulf director Luciano Bonomi says that the prospects seem to be bright. Although business has been slow this year as compared to last year, the construction sector is still vibrant. Corrosion is a serious problem in the Gulf as the steel used in buildings, roads and bridges are seriously affected by the deterioration of concrete. Reval, being corrosion-resistant, improves the longevity of structures,'' he says.
Valbruna Gulf now intends to build a factory/warehouse in the Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZ) in the first quarter of next year.

The company has supplied its type duplex 1.4462 and 1.4436 stainless steel reinforcement to Osco  for the guest complex of Qsar Al Alam in Muscat.