The fast cooling process is of major interest not only for CGL enhancement but also for the overall strip processing route. Therefore the design of the cooling equipment becomes very strategic. To prevent from making the cooling equipment the bottleneck of the processing line, many aspects of the system have to be integrated in the design. Optimum compromises or balance has to be considered with respect to thermal performance, thermo-mechanical stress and mechanical behaviour of the strip. Considering all these parameters the fast cooling process answers the actual demand for improving the continuous processing of steel strip necessary for enhancement of steel properties. The cooling technology is now able to cool down 1 mm gauge material at a cooling rate of 130°C/s (i.e. 160°C/s for 0.8mm gauge material). This cooling technology consists in blowing high H_2 content gas mixture into optimised blowing geometry that can be advantageously integrated in a CGL.
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