HiperScale – High performance hot rolling process through steel grade-dependent influencing of the scale formation and flexible descaling control

Initial situation:

• Scale formation during reheating leads to material losses.
• Poor descalability and scale residuals lead to surface impairments and defects of the rolled product.
• Interrelations for scale formation and scale properties during reheating and descaling are not known properly.
• Efficiency of descaling process cannot be verified.

Working topics:

• Determination and implementation of a suitable scale detection and analysis system.
• General approach for controlled scale formation and descaling strategies.
• Identification, controlling and adjusting scale interfacial effects by scale conditioning coatings.
• Validation of promising new descaling techniques and optimisation of existing descaling strategies.

Results:

• Enhancement of the hot rolling process starting from the furnace conditions over descaling and post-descaling scale formation to the hot rolling itself up to the first rolling steps.
• Enhancement of product quality and productivity of hot rolling by understanding the interfacial reactions and specific application of coatings.
• Better resource efficiency of descaling process.