Integrated plant for the production of rolled stock

A method for in-line casting and rolling of billets from a plurality of casting lines comprising the steps of:

• continuously casting a plurality of billet strands in continuous casting equipment,
• providing a plurality of parallelly disposed conveyors, each to receive one of said billet strands from said continuous casting equipment,
• providing a rolling mill in-line with one of said conveyors and not in-line with the others of said conveyors,
• dividing said billet strands into billets having long lengths,
• providing a tunnel furnace of a length at least equal to the billet lengths and a width to enclose all of said conveyors,
• operating said tunnel furnace to heat up and equalize the temperature of each of said billets and to place said billets at a predetermined rolling temperature,
• conveying said billets sequentially into said tunnel furnace,
• conveying billets, within said tunnel furnace, independently on each parallel disposed conveyor,
• controlling the running speed of the respective conveyors in a time-variable manner,
• providing means for transferring billets laterally from one of said other conveyors to said one conveyor, and
• transferring billets on one of said other conveyors to said one conveyor for discharging said billets in-line in an alternating sequence from said tunnel furnace to said rolling mill.

Apparatus for the production of elongated rolled product comprising:

• continuous casting equipment operative to produce a plurality of parallel lines of elongated product,
• a rolling mill having a plurality of mill stands positioned downstream of said continuous casting equipment in alignment with one of said lines of product,
• a tunnel furnace disposed intermediate said continuous casting equipment and said rolling mill along said one line of product, said tunnel furnace having a length at least equal to the length of said product and having a width effective to enclose all of said plurality of parallel lines of product,
• means for sequentially transferring product within said tunnel furnace from a line other than said one line of product into said one line of product for delivery to said rolling mill,
• said tunnel furnace including a parallel roller conveyor associate with each said line of product, with each roller conveyor adapted to be independently controlled,
• control means for controlling the running speed of the respective conveyors in a time-variable manner,
• a stand storage area adjacent and parallel to said rolling mill, said stand storage area including a plurality of stand storage compartments disposed in end-to-end relation along a line parallel to said rolling mill,
• a quick change table extending parallel to said rolling mill intermediate said rolling mill and said stand storage area, said quick change table being movable in opposite linear directions parallel to said rolling mill and said stand storage area,
• means for transferring mill stands between said stand storage area and said quick change table including a way disposed between said quick change table and said stand storage area and controllable mobile transfer devices movable along said way and operative for transferring mill stands delivered to said quick change table to said stand storage area,
• means disposed in-line with said rolling mill for heat treating elongated metal stock from said rolling mill including a quenching box for controllably cooling hot rolled stock for quenching purposes, induction heating means for heating up and equalizing the rolled or rolled and quenched stock, an annealing furnace for annealing or tempering said stock, a cooling bed disposed upstream of said annealing furnace for controllably cooling the stock, and including means for selectively directing stock along alternate selected flow paths, and
• apparatus disposed in-line with said rolling mill for finishing hot rolled stock therefrom, said apparatus including a conveyor having a closed path, a coil heating chamber disposed interiorly of said path and having an inlet opening and an outlet opening communicating with said conveyor path, coiling means adjacent said conveyor for winding said stock into coils, means for transferring wound coils to said conveyor, means for moving said wound coils about said conveyor path including movement selectively through said coil heating chamber, means upstream of said coiling means for finishing said stock including a first rod finishing line for rolling a billet to a wire rod size, a second rod finishing line consisting of a Garrett line, and means for delivering stock from said rolling mill to one of said rod finishing lines.