COIL MADE OF A COILED METAL STRIP HAVING A MARKING, AND USE OF SAID MARKING

Abstract

A coil made of a coiled metal strip, in particular an aluminum strip, having a marking on a flat side of the metal strip. In order to be able, inter alia, to clearly identify the strip segments severed from the coil it is proposed that the marking, for allocating strip segments severed from the coil to the coil and the original position of the marking on the coil, comprises an information track, preferably extending across the entire strip length of the metal strip having a de-Bruijn sequence of successively arranged words of said de-Bruijn sequence or from a subset of the words of said de-Bruijn sequence.

Claims

1. A coil made of a coiled metal strip, comprising a marking on a flat side of the metal strip, wherein the marking is used for allocating strip segments separated from the coil to the coil and an original position of the marking on the coil, and the marking comprises an information track extending across a strip length of the metal strip having a de-Bruijn sequence of successively arranged words of said de-Bruijn sequence or from a subset of the words of said de-Bruijn sequence.

2. The coil according to claim 1, wherein the information track has a one- or two-dimensional de-Bruijn sequence.

3. The coil according to claim 1, wherein the de-Bruijn sequence has an order k, and words of length n.

4. The coil according to claim 1, wherein the words of the de-Bruijn sequence are formed from an alphanumeric or numeric alphabet.

5. The coil according to claim 1, wherein the information track before and/or after each word of the de-Bruijn sequence has one identical identification each.

6. The coil according to claim 18, wherein the alphabet of the identification differs from the alphabet of the de-Bruijn sequence.

7. A method of using a marking on a flat side of a metal strip wound into a coil, comprising using a marking that comprises an information track provided over a strip length of the metal strip and having a de-Bruijn sequence of successively arranged words of said de-Bruijn sequence or of a subset of the words of said de-Bruijn sequence, for assigning strip segments separated from the coil both to the coil and to an original position of the strip segments on the coil.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the information track has a one- or two-dimensional de-Bruijn sequence.

9. The method according to claim 7, wherein the de-Bruijn sequence has an order k, and words of length n.

10. The method according to claim 7, wherein the words of the de-Bruijn sequence are formed from an alphanumeric or numeric alphabet.

11. The method according to claim 7, wherein the information track has, before and/or after each word of the de-Bruijn sequence, one identical identification each.

12. The method according to claim 23, wherein the alphabet of the identification differs from the alphabet of the de-Bruijn sequence.

13. The method according to claim 7, wherein a hash value is formed and used over the information track of the coil to check authenticity and/or integrity of data and/or a document related to the coil or related to strip segments separated therefrom.

14. The coil according to claim 1, wherein the coiled metal strip is an aluminum strip.

15. The coil according to claim 1, wherein the information track extends across an entire strip length of the metal strip.

16. The coil according to claim 3, wherein k=10.

17. The coil according to claim 3, wherein n is greater than or equal to 6.

18. The coil according to claim 5, wherein the information track before and/or after each word of the de-Bruijn sequence has one identical identification each, from one or more characters of the alphabet.

19. The coil according to claim 18, wherein the information track before and/or after each word of the de-Bruijn sequence has one identical identification each, from one or more characters of the alphabet, in alphabetical order.

20. The method according to claim 7, wherein the information track is provided over an entire strip length of the metal strip.

21. The method according to claim 9, wherein k=10.

22. The method according to claim 9, wherein n is greater than or equal to 6.

23. The method according to claim 11, wherein the information track has, before and/or after each word of the de-Bruijn sequence, one identical identification each, from one or more characters of the alphabet.

24. The method according to claim 23, wherein the information track has, before and/or after each word of the de-Bruijn sequence, one identical identification each, from one or more characters of the alphabet, in alphabetical order.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0025] In the figures, for example, the subject matter of the invention is described in more detail by means of several embodiment variants.

[0026] FIG. 1 shows a top view of a metal strip unwound from a coil according to a first embodiment example, and

[0027] FIG. 2 shows a top view of a metal strip unwound from a coil according to a second embodiment example.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0028] According to FIG. 1, for example, a metal strip 2 wound into a coil 1 or coil, namely aluminum strip, is shown according to a first embodiment example, which has a marking 3 for preferably unambiguous identification of coil 1 on a flat side 2.1. The marking 3 is printed on the metal strip 2. However, this marking 3 can also be provided on a label attached to metal strip 2, which is not shown in detail.

[0029] According to the invention, this printed marking 3 has an information track 4. This information track 4 is provided over the entire length L of the metal strip 2preferably in the area of the longitudinal edge of the metal strip 2. In addition, this information track 4 has words 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5 of a de-Bruijn sequence 5 arranged in succession. These words 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5 are shown spaced apart by spaces in FIG. 1 for better illustrationhowever, it is quite conceivable that the marking 3 is formed without spacesas shown in FIG. 2 at marking 103.

[0030] For example, this is a de-Bruijn sequence B(5,3) above the, preferably numerical, alphabet {0,1,2,3,4} of especially natural numbers. The words 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5 thus have the length n, namely 3and the de-Bruijn sequence B(k,n) has the order k, namely 5. Of this de-Bruijn sequence B(5,3), the words {402}, {301}, {201}, {101} and {401} are recognizable in FIG. 1. This means that each word 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5 of the de-Bruijn sequence occurs only once in information track 4 on metal strip 2.

[0031] Furthermore, information track 4 has the same identification 6, namely amag, before each word 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5 of the de-Bruijn sequence B(5, 3), which identifies the producer. It is also conceivable to provide for the coil number, manufacturer code, etc. in information track 4 via identification 6. For this same identification 6, several characters of the alphabetical alphabet, for example from Latin letters, are used.

[0032] The numerical alphabet of the words in the de-Bruijn sequence and the alphabetical alphabet of the identification 6 make marking 3 easy to read visually and therefore readily processable.

[0033] According to the invention, it is thus possible, even after a strip section 7 has been separated from metal strip 2, to use the information track 4 remaining on strip section 7 to trace back not only the original coil with the marking amag, but also the word 5.1, namely {401}, and/or the word 5.2, namely {101}, to the original position of strip section 7 on metal strip 2 of coil 1. Information track 4 is also comparatively easy to recognize visually and its information can thus be easily processed.

[0034] This is carried out with a handling-friendly, simple comparison of the known position of the information track on coil 1. A cut-through marking 3, as it can be recognized by the word 5.3, namely {201}, in FIG. 1, does not endanger the tracing of the strip section 7 according to the invention.

[0035] As can also be seen in FIG. 1, information track 4 contains a subset of all the words in the de-Bruijn sequence B(5, 3). This means that a de-Bruijn sequence B(5, 3) can be used to mark several strips with a unique identification of the strip sections 7 separated from them.

[0036] In contrast to FIG. 1, the marking 103 on coil 1 according to FIG. 2 in the second embodiment example is provided on the flat side 2.1 along opposite long sides 2.2, 2.3. This means that marking 103 can also remain on a strip section 7 which has been split into two slit strips 7.1, 7.2. In addition, marking 103 has a side numbering 8namely 1 or 2so that it is possible to recognize on slit strip 7.1, 7.2 which side the split strip section 7 is on.

[0037] An identification 6, namely amag, is found in information track 4, which is marked in the same way as in FIG. 1 in the de-Bruijn sequence B(5,3) between two words 5.6-5.24 of the de-Bruijn sequence B(5,3). However, as illustrated, identification 6 is provided after 5 words 5.6-5.10, 5.11-5.15, 5.16-5.20 and 5.21-5.25 of the de-Bruijn sequence B(5,3). The words 5.6-5.10, namely {000}, {001}, {010}, {100}, {002}, the words 5.11-5.15, namely {003}, {030}, {301}, {011}, {110}, the words 5.16-5.20, namely {130}, {302}, {021}, {210}, {102}, and the words 5.21-5.25, namely {202}, {023}, {230}, {303}, {031}, are also sequentially arranged. Between the words 5.10 and 5.11 there are also the words {020}, {200}, between the words 5.15 and 5.16 there are also the words {101}, {013} and between the words 5.20 and 5.21 there are also the words {022}, {220} of the de-Bruijn sequence B(5,3), and at the free end of volume 2 there is the word {120} of the de-Bruijn sequence B(5,3).

[0038] A hash value is formed from information track 4 over the, preferably entire, information track 4 of the coil 1. For example, the hash value 5ce0c22a is formed from 0001002amag0030110amag120 of information track 4 using the hash function CRC32. This hash value 5ce0c22a creates a unique reference to information track 4. If data or a document is linked or provided with the hash value, the authenticity and/or integrity of this data or this document can be checked.