The recently upgraded Experimental Rolling Mill at RDCIS, SAIl was inaugurated by S S Mohanty, Director (Technical), SAIl on Monday. He was accompanied by Dr. B K Jha, ED, RDCIS and other senior officers on this occasion. The rolling of CRGO steel, used in power sector, was rolled in their presence. This mill can roll a minimum thickness of 2 mm thickness in Hot Rolling and 0.2 mm in Cold Rolling. The mill is now ready for various research projects for development of new steel products by SAIl.
This Mill, originally commissioned in 1983, was used for simulating hot and cold rolling of steel in laboratory. Over the years, mill instruments lost their life and utility. Availability of spare part also became problematic. Therefore, new automation and instrumentation systems were incorporated in this mill. It included conversion from analog to digital DC drive for mill and screw-down motors, provision of PlC based control, data acquisition system, new electrical and PlC panels, improvised control desk, remote server etc. The upgraded instrumentation system consisted of absolute encoders for roll gap setting, digital tachometer, new load cells and torque meters and laser sensors. Among the mechanical systems, the screw-down mechanism was overhauled and a new strip cooling system has been designed for facilitating future experiments.
