COOLING EQUIPMENT AND CONTROL SYSTEM OF THERMO-MECHANICAL CONTROL PROCESS DEVELOPED BY NIPPON STEEL FOR MANUFACTURE OF HIGH-QUALITY STEEL PLATES

This paper describes the cooling equipment and control system of the thermo-mechanical control process (TMCP) developed by Nippon Steel. Nippon Steel started the research and development of the cooling equipment and control system in 1978 and shipped the first product manufactured by the TMCP in February 1983. The cooling equipment is located at the rear of the hot leveller, is of the closed type, employs the continuous cooling method, performs accelerated cooling and direct quenching in combination over a wide control range of cooling rates and is provided with a computer-aided cooling rate and flatness control system. It is installed at all plate mills of Nippon Steel, where a total of 1,000,000 tons of steel plates have been produced by the new process since February 1983.