GB1343812A - Treating elongate metal elements - Google Patents

Abstract

1343812 Altering physical properties; stretching; making wire BRITISH ROPES Ltd 29 June 1972 [29 March 1971] 8097/71 Headings B3V B3A and B3E The mechanical and/or physical properties of a flexible elongate metal element are improved by continuously raising the temperature of the element to a given value while subjecting it to a continuously increasing tension, and, the tension having reached a given value, maintaining the tension while cooling the element rapidly. A wire, strand or rope, hereinafter referred to as wire 1, is fed by rolls 3, 4, Fig. 1, to the top of a heated cone 5. The tension in the wire is increased by helically guiding the wire down the cone with grooves 8 in a casing 9, the wire being heated by the cone so as to attain a temperature of from 200-400‹ C. when it reaches skirt 7. Finally the wire is quenched by water sprays 11, 12 and coiled on a wheel 10. In another embodiment the groove 8 is replaced by circumferentially grooved rollers spaced around the cone with their axes parallel with the cone surface. In another embodiment, Fig. 3, a length of wire 1 is locked between capstans 24, 30 over grooved rollers 28. The length of wire is then subjected simultaneously to increasing tension and temperature by respectively raising a pivoted arm 27 by ram 37, via wedges 38, 39 and link 40, and energizing heating devices in the rollers 28. As soon as the required tension and temperature have been reached, the length of wire, still under tension, is wound by the capstan 30 and cooled by spray 31. When the treated length has been wound on, the arm 27 is lowered and the new length of wire between the capstans is ready to be treated.