Water Cooling Flow Control in a Hot Strip Mill

Several run-out table pumps feed cooling water to the header tank, which supplies the laminar flow cooling tubes on a hot strip mill. Constant water level in the header tank produces a constant pressure at the flow control valves in the laminar flow lines and allows good flow control. If too much flow enters the header tank the surplus water overflows into the scale water pit, which represents a waste of pumping energy.

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In order to improve this situation, a water supply control has been developed which uses existing control information and predictive information from the strip mill models. This control sets the speed of variable frequency drives (VFD) connected to the pump motors, and operates as follows:
 

  • The Coil Temperature Control (CTC) computer calculates the required flow of the cooling water in advance.
  • The water supply controller receives the required cooling water flow data from the CTC computer and the mill setup and pacing models.
  • The water supply controller predicts the water volume using this information and determines the speed of the run out table feed pumps.
  • During a roll change, run out table feed pumps are stopped or operated at low speed.

Using this system, pump energy savings of 43% were realized on a coiling temperature control system in a steel mill

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