LEVELLING AND CUT TO LENGTH LINES

This is a FIMI patented system, already applied on several lines, necessary for levelling both high strength steel strips and non-ferrous strips with a very delicate surface.
The TDDS is based on the application of special sliding couplings on each exit shaft of the drive unit distributor, as connecting elements to the shafts that transmit motion to the flattening rollers.

The couplings work in an oil bath, in a special tank, to ensure adequate lubrication and cooling conditions. They are made of special materials that guarantee the possibility of continuous sliding during the entire levelling process, rather than only occasional and sudden sliding when a certain high torque value is reached, as is the case with any sliding coupling available on the market with a protection function against torque overloads.

The purpose of this system is not primarily to protect mechanical parts from overloading (which is in any case a function intrinsically guaranteed by the system), but to obtain a sort of distribution of the levelling torque through all the working rollers and a sort of independence, in terms of rotation speed, of each roll with respect to the others. In this way, each roll can assume its own speed, different from the other rolls, and dependent on the curvature of the strip being levelled in the area of contact with the roll itself. In addition, the torque required for levelling is shared quite homogenously among all rolls, avoiding torque conflicts between the various working rolls and significantly raising the resistance limit of the processable material with the same diameter of the levelling rolls.

The result is no sliding between the working rolls and the strip surface, resulting in a much longer life of the working rolls and no scratches on the strip surface. The sharing of levelling torque among the rolls allows less power consumption (because all the rolls are giving a positive contribute for levelling without braking and fighting against the other) and the possibility to process materials with ultra-high strength mechanical properties that otherwise couldn’t be processed by traditional levelling drive system, because the levelling torque through the most loaded rolls would break them.