System and method for manufacturing thin plate by hot working

A method for manufacturing thin plate comprising:

• conveying a plurality of heated thin cast slab plates with a thickness of less than 100 mm adjacent one another in a heated condition,
• continuously splicing facing ends of adjacent ones of the heated slab plates while conveying same to thereby form a continuous strip of spliced together heated slab plates,
• and hot rolling said continuous strip of heated slab plates at a plurality of serially arranged hot rolling finishing mill stands, at least one of said hot rolling finishing mill stands having only one pair of small working rollers which are driven by respective supporting rollers and are not directly rotatably driven, thereby facilitating high rolling loads at the at least one mill stand with only one pair of small diameter working rollers.

A system for manufacturing thin plate comprising:

• a thin cast heated slab plate conveyor,
• a splicer disposed downstream of said thin cast heated slab plate conveyor in the travel path of the cast slab plates which in use continuously splice the spacing ends of adjacent ones of the slab plates together to thereby form a continuous strip of spliced together slab plates, and
• a plurality of hot rolling finishing mill stands disposed downstream of the splicer to continuously roll the continuous strip of spliced together slab plates, at least one of said plurality of hot rolling finishing mill stands having only one pair of small diameter working rollers and respective backup rollers backing up and rotatably driving said working rollers.

A method of manufacturing thin plate comprising:

• conveying a plurality of thin cast slab plates adjacent one another in a heated condition, said plurality of thin cast slab plates each having a thickness of less than 100 mm,
• continuously splicing facing ends of adjacent ones of the conveyed heated slab plates together to thereby form a continuous strip of spliced together slab plates, and
• continuously rolling the continuous strip of spliced together slab plates in a plurality of hot rolling finishing mill stands, at least one of said plurality of hot rolling finishing mill stands having only one pair of small diameter working rollers, said rolling including indirect rotating drive of said small diameter working rollers by way of backup rollers engaging said small diameter working rollers.