Rolling of finished products

At the end of the blooming or continuous casting process, the half-products take the form of :

• blooms: roughly square in cross-section from 100 mm × 100 mm to 320 mm × 360 mm, their length is highly variable and can exceed 14 m ;

• billets: squares of smaller cross-section (100 mm × 100 mm to 155 mm × 155 mm) and highly variable length, supplied to wire mills and forges.

All these products, generally taken from cold storage yards, need to be brought to a temperature that makes lamination possible. This temperature is a compromise between easy rolling and fuel savings. It is around 1,200°C for a high-capacity wire mill.

To achieve...