ONLINE MEASUREMENT OF WORK ROLL PROFILE IN A HOT STRIP FINISHING MILL

An on-line roll profile meter has been developed to measure the surfac e contour of the work roll in a hot strip finishing mill. The system c onsists of a sensor head with twenty ultrasonic distance meters, a sen sor head scanner, a signal processing unit and a computer. The ultraso nic distance meter uses a water column as sound propagation medium. Te n distance meters measure the distribution of distance between the rol l surface and the reference surface of the sensor head. Other ten dist ance meters monitor the straightness of the reference surface. A tensi oned wire is used as the reference of the straightness. Each distance meter can measure the sound velocity directly in the water column to c ompensate for the error due to the sound velocity variation. The off - line and on-line measurements were carried out at the No.2 hot strip m ill in Chiba Works of Kawasaki Steel. The results showed that the meas uring accuracy was less than +/-10mum.