Recent Hot Strip Mill in China

Along with the development of large power devices, the features of the AC drive system for rolling mills have dramatically improved. Here we present the features of recent AC drives such as higher control response, higher efficiency, less harmonics and smaller footprint. TMEIC supplied the drive system and the control system to Hunan Valin Liangang Steel Co. Ltd.'s new hot strip mill. The plant is a completely AC driven plant. The auxiliary drives are 2-level PWM inverters and the main drives are 3-level PWM inverters. It started successful operation in December 2003. This paper describes the features of recent drive systems and the experimental results of the new hot strip mill.