A process inferentially determines hydrodynamic bearing flotation in a metal rolling operation for a metal roller bearing. The process receives from a mill stand processing the metal roll a rolling load of the metal roll, a gap between a pair of rollers pressing the metal roll, and a speed of the metal roll through the pair of rollers. The process further receives from the mill stand a gauge of the metal roll after the metal roll has passed through the pair of rollers. The process determines the hydrodynamic bearing flotation using the rolling load of the metal roll, the gap between a pair of rollers pressing the metal roll, the speed of the metal roll through the pair of rollers, and the gauge of the metal roll after the metal roll has passed through the pair of rollers. The process then adjusts the gap between the pair of rollers based on the determined hydrodynamic bearing flotation.

A cooling method for a rolling ingot of aluminum alloy after metallurgical homogenization heat treatment of said ingot and before hot rolling, characterized in that cooling by 30 to 150? C. is performed at a rate of 150 to 500? C./h, with a thermal differential of less than 40? C. throughout the treated portion of the ingot is disclosed. A facility allowing use of said method and said implementation is also disclosed.

A slab casting method using a twin-drum continuous casting device manufactures a slab by solidifying molten metal by a pair of rotating casting drums includes calculating estimated sheet thicknesses on both ends in a width direction of the slab from equation 1 ((estimated sheet thickness)=(cylinder screw down position)+(elastic deformation of casting drum)+(casting drum housing screw down system deformation)+(drum profile of casting drum)?(elastic deformation of casting drum at the time of screw down position zero adjustment)) by using a casting drum housing screw down system deformation characteristic indicating a deformation characteristic of housings that support the casting drums and a deformation characteristic of a screw down system that screws down the casting drums obtained before casting of the slab starts, and controlling screw down positions of cylinders provided on both ends in a width direction of the casting drums.

A rolling mill is provided with: a roll for rolling a metal plate, the roll being capable of shifting in an axial direction and having a tapered portion at an end portion in the axial direction; and a heating unit configured to form an expansion portion protruding in a radial direction in the tapered portion by heating the tapered portion.

Control system for cold rolling mills to improve sheet metal thickness uniformity. Sensors monitor the state of the cold rolling mill by measuring (i) roll eccentricity, (ii) roll slips during mill operation, (iii) mill disturbances from roll speed or roll force manifestations, and (iv) unknown disturbances referred to as process noise. The controller analyzes data from sensors to compensate. Data collected during the mill operation by the sensors are delayed in reaching the controller. This communication delay is accounted for by using a filter. Since an objective of the controller software is dynamic identification of eccentricity of the back up rolls, which is non-linear by nature, an Extended Kalman Filter may be used.

A cooling method for a rolling ingot of aluminium alloy after metallurgical homogenization heat treatment of said ingot and before hot rolling, characterized in that cooling by 30 to 150? C. is performed at a rate of 150 to 500? C./h, with a thermal differential of less than 40? C. throughout the treated portion of the ingot is disclosed. A facility allowing use of said method and said implementation is also disclosed.

A closed loop temperature control system for use in tandem rolling mills. The closed loop temperature control system uses dynamic information about the temperature of the material moving through the mill to adjust the work rolls to adjust the amount of thickness reduction between the stands to control the temperature of the material as it moves through the mill. In one embodiment, the control system is configured to eliminate or reduce temperature differences across the length of the material as the material moves through acceleration, steady state, and deceleration stages of the rolling process.

A rolled sheet metal mill controller for controlling thickness of sheet metal produced by rolls of the mill, the controller comprising one or more processors and code stored on media readable by the one or more processors to control the thickness of the produced sheet metal, the controller including an input coupled to receive multiple measured mill parameters including produced sheet metal thickness that is time delayed from the production of the sheet metal, multiple models of the sheet metal mill, wherein the sheet metal thickness is modeled as an input varying delay, and at least one internal disturbance model based on one or more of the multiple measured parameters coupled to the input, a Kalman filter based on the multiple models, and an output coupled to control a gap between the rolls that produce the rolled sheet metal.

A six-high rolling (also known as sexto) mill stand that is suited for hot rolling an intermediate strip into a thin strip that is less than 0.8 mm thick. A combined casting and rolling installation that includes the six-high rolling mill stand allowing for hot rolling in long uninterrupted sequences, without any change of the work rolls to obtain a strip with good geometry due to moderate rolling forces.

A metal foil for a spring member includes a first region on which the spring member is formed. The first region has a square shape with one side being 300 mm. In the first region, an absolute value of a difference value obtained by subtracting a standard deviation of a thickness in a width direction orthogonal to a rolling direction from a standard deviation of a thickness in the rolling direction is less than or equal to 0.15 m. In the first region, an absolute value of a difference value obtained by subtracting a second maximum value from a first maximum value is less than or equal to 0.8 m.