Method for the accelerated cooling of annealed material and an apparatus for carrying out the method

摘要

When annealing in an annealing furnace, in particular when annealing coils (6) within a bell-type annealing furnace, cooling gas in circulated through the furnace chamber (5) and, outside the furnace chamber (5), through a cooler (12) until the annealed material has cooled. It is proposed to carry out this cooling operation as a two-stage process in which the speed of circulation in the first stage is largely constant and in which the speed of circulation decreases in the second stage. The transition from the first to the second stage is implemented as soon as a predetermined density of the cooling gas is reached. The stepwise reduction of the speed of circulation is effected, for example, by means of a restriction element (16) in the circuit, which element is infinitely adjustable by means of an actuator (23). The actuator (23) is actuated by a control device (22) which evaluates the pulses of a sensor (20) which records the density of the cooling gas. IMAGE