A combined continuous casting and endless rolling plant for a metal strip, comprisinga continuous casting line (1) for casting a slab;a first rolling mill (6) for roughing the slab and for obtaining a transfer bar;a second rolling mill (11) for finishing the transfer bar and for obtaining a strip;a third rolling mill (18), comprising at least two first rolling stands (17), for further reducing the thickness of the strip;accumulation means (20) of the strip, downstream of said third rolling mill (18), comprising at least one first high-capacity reel (37, 37) dimensioned to wind and unwind a coil weighing from 80 to 250 tons and/or up to 6 meters in diameter, named mega coil;flying cutting means (13), arranged between said third rolling mill (18) and said accumulation means (20), configured to cut the strip after the mega roll has been wound on the at least one first reel (37, 37);a cutting and winding line (22), downstream of said accumulation means (20), for cutting the strip of the mega coil and winding portions of said strip of the mega coil to a predetermined weight limit or coil diameter limit, producing a plurality of coils; wherein said cutting and winding line (22) is provided with a reversible rolling mill for performing at least one rolling of the strip before producing said plurality of coils.

A combined casting and rolling installation that produces hot-rolled strip with a final thickness<1.2 mm, and includes a first continuous casting installation and a second continuous casting installation, each producing slabs from liquid steel; a slab manipulator that conveys the slabs into a walking beam furnace that conveys the slabs into a rolling installation and heats the slabs to rolling temperature. The rolling installation includes a rough rolling mill forming rough-rolled strips from the heated slabs; a coil box forming a coil from the rough-rolled strip and unwinding the rough-rolled strip; a joining device forming an endless rough-rolled strip by connecting its ends without filler material; a multi-stand finishing rolling mill finish-rolling the endless rough-rolled strip to form a finished strip with the final thickness; a cooling section forming the hot-rolled strip; and a plurality of coiling devices coiling the hot-rolled strip.

This gate device is provided with a guide unit having a guide section that is disposed at the downstream side of pinch rollers at a path line along which a metal sheet is conveyed, opens/closes a coil-up line that is curved from the path line, and guides the upwards-facing surface side of the metal sheet led in to the coil-up line. A configuration is adopted such that the guide unit has a main body frame and a liner that is attached to the main body frame, forms at least a portion of the second guide surface that guides the metal sheet, has a lower coefficient of friction than the main body frame, and has a lower hardness than that of the metal sheet.

A method for operating a combined casting/rolling installation: A casting machine (4) of the combined installation (2) produces a cast product (40) and a rolling mill (6, 8) of the installation (2) produces a rolled product (42a, 42b) from the cast product (40). The installation (2) has a control device (12) with a measuring unit (14) and a controller (16). The measuring unit (14) detects a rolled-product property, generates a measurement signal dependent on that property and transmits the measurement signal to the controller (16), and the controller (16) uses the measurement signal to generate a control signal for the casting machine (4) based on a control algorithm and transmits the control signal to the casting machine (4) which uses the control signal to set a casting parameter. The detected rolled-product property is a temperature profile of the rolled product (42a, 42b) in the width direction thereof and the casting parameter that is set by the casting machine (4) using the control signal is a cooling parameter of the casting machine (4).

An aluminum hot strip rolling mill including a multi-stand tandem finishing rolling train (2), at least one winding reel (8) arranged downstream, in the rolling direction, of the multi-stand tandem finishing rolling train, a cooling section (4) provided in the outlet region of the aluminum hot strip rolling mill, and at least one trimmer (6) paired with the multi-stand tandem finishing rolling train and arranged downstream, in the rolling direction, in the rolling direction, of the multi-stand tandem rolling mill train.

A method for operating a combined casting/rolling installation: A casting machine (4) of the combined installation (2) produces a cast product (40) and a rolling mill (6, 8) of the installation (2) produces a rolled product (42a, 42b) from the cast product (40). The installation (2) has a control device (12) with a measuring unit (14) and a controller (16). The measuring unit (14) detects a rolled-product property, generates a measurement signal dependent on that property and transmits the measurement signal to the controller (16), and the controller (16) uses the measurement signal to generate a control signal for the casting machine (4) based on a control algorithm and transmits the control signal to the casting machine (4) which uses the control signal to set a casting parameter. The detected rolled-product property is a temperature profile of the rolled product (42a, 42b) in the width direction thereof and the casting parameter that is set by the casting machine (4) using the control signal is a cooling parameter of the casting machine (4).

An aluminum foil rolling process includes: providing first and second aluminum foils, each having first and second faces; lubricating one face between the first and second faces to obtain a first lubricated face; coupling the first and second foils, thereby obtaining a coupled foil having two outer faces; rolling the coupled foil, reducing the thickness of the coupled foil; lubricating one face between the two outer faces of the coupled foil, obtaining a coupled foil having a second lubricated face; winding the coupled foil having the second lubricated face, obtaining a wound coupled foil; partially separating the coupled foil by unwinding one of the first and second foils, obtaining a wound coupled foil; unwinding the wound coupled foil; rolling the coupled foil thereby obtaining a coupled foil with reduced thickness; separating the coupled foil with reduced thickness obtaining a first and second foils with respective first and second reduced thicknesses.

The hot-rolled Nb-containing ferritic stainless steel sheet of the present invention has a composition containing C: 0.030 mass % or less, Si: 2.00 mass % or less, Mn: 2.00 mass % or less, P: 0.050 mass % or less, S: 0.040 mass % or less, Cr: 10.00 mass % to 25.00 mass %, N: 0.030 mass % or less and Nb: 0.01 mass % to 0.80 mass %, with the balance being made up of Fe and unavoidable impurities. In this hot-rolled Nb-containing ferritic stainless steel sheet, the precipitation amount of Nb carbonitrides is 0.2 mass % or more, and the number of Laves phases having a grain size of 0.1 m or less is 10 or fewer per 10 m.sup.2 of surface area.

Method for the production of flat metal products, in particular coils of strip, in endless and/or semi-endless mode, in which a metal product is continuously fed to a rolling mill consisting overall of at least 4 stands. The rolling stands are, in sequence, roughing stands, and finishing stands. It is provided to perform a flying gauge change of the metal product exiting from the rolling mill.

In rolls of winding equipment in a hot-rolling factory, each roll includes a lower cladding layer formed on the surface of the roll barrel and a self-fluxing alloy layer formed on the lower cladding layer by thermal spraying and containing carbide particles dispersed therein. The lower cladding layer includes an Fe-based cladding layer which has a Shore hardness of 60 or greater and which contains, in terms of mass %, 0.1-0.4 C, up to 2.0 Si, up to 3.0 Mn, 1.0-15.0 Cr, and 2.5-5.0 Ni. The lower cladding layer further contains one or more of Mo, V, and Co, the contents of Mo, V, and Co being 0.1-5.0 mass %, 0.1-3.0 mass %, and 0.5-5.0 mass %, respectively.