Method of operating a rolling line for wire or light sections

Abstract

A method of operating a mill for wire or fine sections in which control of the rolling gap is limited only to selected stands of a multiple stand intermediate line of the mill for changeover of the product to be rolled, for example, as the composition or diameter.

We claim:  
     
         1 . A method of operating a rolling mill for producing wire or light sections, comprising the steps of: 
 (a) passing an original workpiece having characterizing workpiece properties including cross-sectional shape, cross-sectional dimensions and composition in succession through a preliminary rolling line, an intermediate rolling line and a finishing rolling line to produce a rolled product, at least said intermediate rolling line comprising a multiplicity of rolling stands each having at least a pair of rolls defining a rolling gap between them;    (b) setting the rolling gaps of all individual stands of said intermediate line to produce said product based upon inlet and outlet cross sections and composition of said workpiece, and calculated based upon a loading property of the respective stand; and    (c) changing the workpiece passed in step (a) through said lines to a workpiece having at least one characterizing workpiece property different from those of the original workpiece, and modifying the rolling gap settings of only selected ones of the rolling stands of the intermediate line at locations along the intermediate line enabling tolerance-maintaining rolling of the workpiece through all of the stands of the intermediate line.    
     
     
         2 . The method defined in  claim 1 , further comprising the step of controlling temperatures of the rolls of said intermediate line.  
     
     
         3 . The method defined in  claim 2  for the rolling of wire wherein the finishing line has finishing mills directly following said intermediate line, and wherein a first two or four stands and a last two or four stands of the intermediate line have their rolling gap settings modified in step (c).