ReduHeatLoss – Reduction of Heat Losses during Hot Rolling of Long Products

The aim of ReduHeatLoss is to minimise heat losses of hot rolled long products along the rolling process. Many studies have been focussed on heat losses during reheating. Other heat losses have been neglected, although, especially in long product rolling, they contribute for more than 50% to the overall heat losses. ReduHeatLoss mainly focuses on heat sinks (heat losses) related to descaling and work roll cooling, for which proposing innovative solutions can be implemented with limited efforts in terms of design / process engineering.

A main part of this project is focussed on accurately quantifying the individual heat sinks in the process and minimising them by intelligent solutions adapted to the process without restricting the rolling process and product quality. The objectives of ReduHeatLoss are:

• Optimised descaling for a better / more uniform product surface quality.
• Optimised roll cooling to reduce roll wear and product shape accuracy.
• Optimisation of the rolling process with new control systems for descaling and roll cooling.

Additional benefits are to reduce electrical energy related to descaling and cooling, to increase roll performance and heat control of furnace (resulting in energy savings) as well as the reduction of the water consumption and thus energy for the pumps.

• descaling
• heat loss
• Hot rolling
• iterative learning control
• Long products
• roll cooling