GB2400060A

GB2400060A - Rolling Mill

Info

Publication number: GB2400060A
Application number: GB0403716A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Hubert Mueller
Original assignee: SMS Meer GmbH
Current assignee: SMS Group GmbH
Priority date: 2003-04-01
Filing date: 2004-02-19
Publication date: 2004-10-06
Anticipated expiration: 2024-02-19
Also published as: ATA18902003A; SE0303139D0; DE10314802B3; SE0303139L; GB2400060B; ITMI20040612A1; GB0403716D0; AT414217B; SE526323C2

Abstract

A continuous wire rolling mill comprises, behind a roughing train, an intermediate train ZS, which comprises several independently drivable intermediate roll blocks (ZWB I, ZWB II, ZWB III) and a finishing train (FS) which is downstream thereof and similarly comprises independently drivable intermediate roll blocks (FWB I, FWB II). The mill further comprises shunts (UWI, UWII, UWIII) which are arranged in front of, between and behind the individual intermediate roll blocks and which guide strip out of a rolling line (WL) into a bypass path (UB) and back again into the rolling line, and displacing means for taking selected blocks out of the rolling line and exchanging these for others (ZWB III', FWB', FWB''). The shunts and bypass path are associated with a selected sequence of upstream intermediate roll blocks (ZWB I, ZWB II) of the intermediate train. A downstream intermediate roll block (ZWB III) of the intermediate train and the finishing roll blocks (FWB I, FWB II) of the finishing train are associated with the displacing means.

Description

ROLLING MILL

The present invention relates to a rolling mill, especially a continuous wire rolling mill.

Wire rolling trains are known in the most diverse forms of construction. In one such construction (DE 198 43 032 A1), a finishing block, which comprises a plurality of roll stands drivable in common, and a size finishing block, which comprises a plurality of roll stands individually driven, are arranged one aver the other in a first path to which the rolled stock strip is fed from an intermediate section of the wire rolling train. This size finishing block can be moved out of and back into the rolling line. Arranged in front of this block at the entry of the first path is a diverter or shunt which leads to a second path. A further finishing block is arranged in the second path. The second path leads by way of two bypasses and a shunt, which is arranged in front of the first-mentioned finishing block in the first path, back into this path.

A further mill (EP 606 966 B1) is concerned with feeding the strip, which comes from an intermediate section of the wire rolling train, by way of an intermediate shunt delectably in a first guide line, which is equipped with a finishing block and further intermediate shunts, or in a second, parallelly extending guide line, which is similarly equipped with a finishing block, directly to strip collecting equipment or, with the help of a further guide shunt arrangement between the two lines, finishrolling the strip initially in the first line by the finishing block arranged therein and subsequently thereto by the finishing block disposed in the parallelly extending guide line and then feeding the strip to the collecting equipment.

Finally, DE 101 46 431 discloses a wire rolling train which comprises, after its intermediate section, three guide lines, of which the first comprises - ahead of rolled stock collecting equipment opening by way of an intermediate shunt into the second line - a first multi- stand intermediate block and behind this an intermediate shunt leading into a 180 bypass which opens into a further intermediate shunt in the third line. This leads by way of a 180 bypass with the start of the second line led directly to the rolled stock collecting equipment, wherein arranged in front of or behind the intermediate shunt is a further intermediate shunt with a downstream 180 bypass; this opens by way of a further intermediate shunt in this line behind the outlet of an intermediate block, which is arranged in this line, into this intermediate block.

Proceeding from a further proposal to preshape rolled strip, which is led out of the intermediate train, by way of a pair of roughing blocks arranged in succession and to shape the strip to finished form in a finishing block downstream of these roughing blocks and then feed the strip to a multi-stand sizing block constructed as an exchangeable unit, wherein the roll stands of the roughing and finishing blocks in the case of a dimensional change of the rolled strip have to be similarly changed in adjustment with the consequence of corresponding standstill times, the invention has the object of creating a possibility of automatically converting the plant in a short time for every desired dimension.

According to the present invention there is provided a continuous wire rolling train which comprises, behind the roughing train, an intermediate train, which comprises several independently drivable roll stand blocks, and a finishing train, which is consecutive thereto and similarly comprises independently drivable roll stand blocks, as well as shunt arrangements, which are arranged in front of, between and after the individual roll stand blocks and which guide the rolled stock strip out of the rolling line into bypass paths and back again into the rolling line, as well as devices for alternately bringing selected roll stand blocks out of the rolling line and into this, characterized in that a selected sequence of the first roll stand blocks of the intermediate train is associated with the shunts and bypass paths, and the succeeding roll stand blocks of this intermediate train as well as the roll stand blocks of the finishing train are associated with the devices for taking out and bringing in these roll stands blocks in exchange for other roll stand blocks.

The finishing train can comprise three roll stand blocks each with two roll stands, of which the last roll stand block is associated with a fast change device for moving roll stands out of and into the rolling line and the finishing train can comprise two roll stand blocks each with four roll stands, which are similarly associated with fast change devices for taking out and bringing in the roll stands. The roll stands of the first two roll stand blocks of the finishing train can have individual drives with interposed tension regulation or in each instance a group drive and the roll stands of the last roll stand block can have individual drives with interposed tension regulation. The roll stands of the roll stand blocks of the finishing train can have two group drives or one roll stand block can have a group drive and the roll stands of the other block can have individual drives. The roll stand blocks of the finishing train can also each have six roll stands or also eight roll stands. The roll stands can in that case also be driven by way of speed-change transmissions.

Such a construction of a rolling mill, particularly of a continuous wire rolling train, creates the possibility of achieving a conversion, which is required for a change of the rolling program, from an existing sizing pass sequence to another by circumventing selected roll stand blocks in the rolling line of the finishing train and effecting exchange of roll stand blocks against prepared other roll stand blocks in the intermediate train and in the finishing train by way of simple, centrally controlled switching commands for appropriate shunts and displacing devices. Since the sequence of conversion movements of the shunts and the displacement movements of the roll stand blocks may require only a few minutes of time, conversions of the rolling program can be carried out in a correspondingly short time and thus the availability and outputs of the mill may be substantially improved.

An embodiment of the present invention will now be more particularly described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawing, the single figure of which is a schematic diagram of a rolling mill embodying the invention.

Referring now to the drawing there is shown a wire rolling mill with a rolling line WL comprising an intermediate roiling train ZS and a finishing rolling train FS downstream of the intermediate train. The intermediate train ZS itself is downstream of a roughing train (not shown).

The intermediate train ZS comprises three intermediate roll blocks ZWBI, ZWBII and ZWB 111, which are arranged at a spacing one after the other. Each of these intermediate roll blocks ZWB here comprises two roll stands. Arranged in front of the first two intermediate roll blocks ZWB I and ZWBII are, respectively, two bypass shunts UW I and UW 11 which lead to a bypass path UB which runs parallelly to the rolling line WL and bypasses the two roll blocks ZWBI and ZWBII. The bypass path UB returns to the rolling line WL by way of a bypass shunt UW ill in front of the intermediate roll block ZWB 111. The shunt UW 11 leading into the bypass path UBis arranged in the rolling line WL between the intermediate roll blocks ZWBI and ZWBII. The intermediate roll block ZWBIII can be taken out of the rolling line WL with the assistance of displacing devices (not illustrated) and another intermediate roll block ZWB111' can be brought into the rolling line WL in its place.

The finishing train FS comprises two finishing roll blocks FWBI and FWBII arranged in the same rolling line WL at a spacing one after the other. Each of the two finishing roll blocks FWBI and FWBII can be selectably taken out of the rolling line WL with the assistance of displacing devices (not illustrated) and another finishing roll block FWB 1' or FWB 11' can be brought into the rolling line WL in its place. The finishing roll blocks are here each equipped with four roll stands.

This rolling mill can be so operated for a specific rolling program that, for example, wire strip brought out of the roughing train transits the intermediate roll blocks ZWB 1, ZWB 11 and ZWB 111 and subsequently the finishing roll blocks FWB I and FWB 11 in rectilinear sequence and then is fed to a further processing device (not illustrated), for example wire collecting equipment. For another rolling program, the advancing wire strip can be led, for example with circumvention of the first intermediate roll block ZWB I and the second intermediate roll block ZWB 11, by way of the shunt UW 1, the bypass path UB and the shunt UW 111 to the intermediate roll block ZWB 111, or the strip can be led behind the intermediate roll block ZWB 1, with circumvention of the second intermediate roll block ZWB 11, by way of the shunt UW 11, the bypass path UB and the shunt UWIII to, for example, the intermediate roll block ZWB Ill' optionally introduced into the rolling line WL in place of the intermediate roll block ZWB Ill. The finishing roll blocks FWB I and optionally FWB 11 of the finishing train FS can in that case be replaced individually or in common by the finishing blocks FWB 1' and FWB 11', respectively, held ready outside the rolling line WL. These and other freely selectable, different sizing pass transits can take place, as mentioned, by simple setting commands for the bypass shunts and the displacing devices.

By virtue of the rapid conversion to other dimensions which is made possible, different dimensions can be produced with the same steel quality, i.e. rolling sequence according to steel quality and not according to dimension; this is particularly advantageous for hot charging.

Claims

1. A rolling mill comprising a rolling line with a roughing train, an intermediate train downstream of the roughing train and comprising a plurality of independently drivable intermediate roll units and a finishing train downstream of the intermediate train and comprising a plurality of independently drivable finishing roll units, diverting means associated with a selected sequence of upstream roll units of the intermediate train and operable to divert material to be or being rolled from the rolling line to a bypass path and from the bypass path back to the rolling line, and exchange means associated with a downstream roll unit or downstream roll units of the intermediate train and with the roll units of the finishing train and operable to selectively exchange the associated units for other roll units.

2. A mill as claimed in claim 1, wherein the intermediate train comprises two upstream and one downstream roll units each with two roll stands and the finishing train comprises two roll units each with four roll stands.

3. A mill as claimed in claim 2, wherein the roll stands of the two upstream roll units of the intermediate train have individual drives with interposed tension regulation means for the material.

4. A mill as claimed in claim 2, wherein the roll stands of the two upstream roll units of the intermediate train each have a group drive.

5. A mill as claimed in any one of claims 2 to 4, wherein the roll stands of the downstream roll unit of the intermediate train have individual drives with interposed tension regulation means for the material.

6. A mill as claimed in any one of claims 2 to 5, wherein the roll stands of the roll units of the finishing train have group drives.

7. A mill as claimed in any one of claims 2 to 5, wherein the roll stands of one roll unit of the finishing train have a group drive and the roll stands of the other roll unit of the finishing train have individual drives.

8. A mill as claimed in claim 1, wherein each of the roll units of the finishing train has six roll stands.

9. A mill as claimed in claim 1, wherein each of the roll units of the finishing train has eight roll stands.

10. A mill as claimed in claim 8 or claim 9, comprising speed-change transmission means to transmit drive to the roll stands of the roll units of the finishing train.

11. A mill as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, comprising loop regulating means arranged between the roll units.

12. A mill as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the roll units of the finishing train are arranged directly one after the other and comprise mechanically intercoupled roll stands.

13. A mill as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the diverting means is operable to selectably divert the material from the rolling line to the bypass path upstream of a first one of the upstream roll units of the intermediate train or between that unit and a second one of the upstream roll units of the intermediate train.

14. A mill as claimed in claim 13, wherein the diverting means is operable to divert the material from the bypass path back to the rolling line downstream of the second one of the upstream roll units of the intermediate train and upstream of the downstream roll unit or units of the intermediate train.