Inductive continuous annealing pilot line for steel strip

The continuous inductive heat treatment of steel strip is an alternative to gas fired continuous annealing lines. Many applications exist especially f or flexible annealing processes of high strength materials. According to th is background, ultra short annealing processes have to be realised. A newly installed pilot line allows the inductive annealing of strips the maximum width of which is 800 mm, The research project deals with the influence of ultra short annealing cycles on the properties of cold rolled steel strip a s well as with the adaptation of induction heating to different steel grade s. Therefore, a combination of longitudinal flux induction up to the Curie temperature followed by a transverse flux induction is used. Apart from the conception of the pilot line and pre-tests, first results obtained with th e pilot line are presented here.