There are many types of Wire Rod Rolling Mill for producing long products, so the selection of mill type, layout, roll material, and roll size can be quite broad. Different rolling mills require different types of rolls to meet the production requirements.
1. Bar and Small Section Rolling Mills:
These mills can use steel billets or continuously cast small square billets ranging from 80-150 mm in size as feedstock to produce small sections and bars. The initial feed temperature is around 1200°C, and the mills can operate in a semi-continuous or fully continuous mode. Continuous mills typically have roughing, intermediate, and finishing stands, with the roughing stands arranged in a horizontal/vertical sequence depending on the product mix. The intermediate and finishing stands can be either vertical or horizontal, with vertical stands more common for bar products and horizontal stands more common for other small sections.
2. Wire Rod Rolling Mills:
Wire rod mills have a roughing stand and intermediate stands similar to small section mills. Compared to two-strand small section mills, these mills are generally designed for up to 4-strand simultaneous split rolling. However, the current trend is towards single-strand high-speed rolling. Modern wire rod mills typically have 8-10 no-twist stands arranged at 90° angles in the finishing train.
The roll diameters used in wire rod mills are limited to around 200 mm, with rolling speeds up to 140 m/s.
3. Medium and Heavy Section Rolling Mills:
After the roughing stand, medium-section mills have two continuous stands. The continuous mills can be arranged horizontally or vertically, depending on the pass design. For parallel-flange beams and channels, universal stands are also used, which can be replaced with horizontal stands when rolling other sections.
The larger-diameter horizontal rolls shape the profile of the sections, while the smaller-diameter vertical rolls shape the edges. Passing the material through the conventional stands and the universal stands can achieve a good surface finish and dimensional accuracy.