Optimizing the energy consumption of coil annealing furnaces by mathematical modelling of the annealing process

摘要

The coils of strip made in aluminium mills by hot and cold rolling are subjected to a variety of intermediate and finish annealing treatments for metallurgical reasons. It is common practice that coils of different alloy composition, geometry and residual heat content are placed in shop floor buffer storage and allowed to cool down before undergoing the actual heat treatment in so-called chamber furnaces. Chamber furnaces may be of single or multi-coil design. A major benefit of single-coil units, as the name implies, is that they allow the operator to anneal each coil individually. As a result, a change of alloy, product geometry or start temperature is easily possible between batches.