US-12618130-B2 - Hot uncoiling of metal

US12618130B2US 12618130 B2US12618130 B2US 12618130B2US-12618130-B2

Abstract

A system for heat-treating a coil of metal can include a furnace, an unwinding system, and a quenching system. The furnace may receive the coil of metal and elevate a temperature of the metal to be within a pre-heated temperature range, such as a homogenizing temperature range or an annealing temperature range. The unwinding system may unwind at least a portion of the coil in a heated state in which the metal is within the pre-heated temperature range or before the metal has cooled past a threshold amount below the pre-heated temperature range. The quenching system may receive the unwound portion of the coil from the unwinding device and reduce a temperature of the unwound portion to a within a quenched temperature range within a predetermined amount of time.

Inventors

Timothy Francis Stanistreet
Sazol Kumar Das
Mark Finn
Renato Rufino XAVIER
Frank Su
Louis Mitchell Nazro
Tudor Piroteala
Samuel Robert Wagstaff
Barbara Lucille Hyde
DAVID ANTHONY GAENSBAUER

Assignees

NOVELIS INC.

Dates

Publication Date: 20260505
Application Date: 20201013

Claims (15)

1 . A method for heat-treating a coil of metal, the method comprising: heating the coil of metal within furnace heating section of a furnace to elevate a temperature of the metal to be within a pre-heated temperature range corresponding to a homogenizing temperature range or an annealing temperature range; unwinding the coil of metal in a heated state in which the metal is within the pre-heated temperature range or before the metal has cooled past a threshold amount of 50° C. or less below the pre-heated temperature range, wherein the unwinding produces an unwound portion of the coil; between the heating of the coil and at least a part of the unwinding of the coil, transporting the coil between the furnace heating section that performed the heating of the coil and an unwinding location; and quenching the unwound portion of the coil to reduce a temperature of the unwound portion to a quenched temperature range within a predetermined amount of time less than 20 seconds, wherein the quenching produces a quenched portion.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the heating, unwinding, and quenching are performed with the coil maintained in a continuous band of material without the band being subject to severing and re-connecting.
3 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising: re-coiling the quenched portion into a second coil.
4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising unloading the coil from the furnace from below or beside the furnace.
5 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising at least partially encasing the coil with insulation material to reduce heat loss during the transporting of the coil.
6 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising: inserting a mandrel into a spool about which the coil is formed, wherein the inserting of the mandrel occurs before the heating of the coil, and wherein the mandrel is configured to radially expand for adapting to a change in size of an inner diameter of the spool resulting from the heating of the coil; and rotating the mandrel, wherein the unwinding of the coil results from the mandrel rotating.
7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the metal comprises aluminum.
8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the pre-heated temperature range corresponds to a homogenizing temperature range between 400° C. and 600° C.
9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the pre-heated temperature range corresponds to an annealing temperature range between 300° C. and 500° C.
10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the quenched temperature range resulting from the quenching is between 200° C. and 500° C.
11 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the quenched temperature range resulting from the quenching is between 200° C. and 350° C.
12 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the quenching comprises subjecting the unwound portion of the coil to a quenching medium provided in a quenching temperature range between 100° C. and 250° C.
13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the quenching comprises subjecting the unwound portion of the coil to a quenching medium provided in a quenching temperature range between 10° C. and 200° C.
14 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the quenching corresponds to a heat extraction rate greater than 10° C./s.
15 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the quenching corresponds to a heat extraction rate less than 100° C./s.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application claims the benefit of and priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/005,014, filed Apr. 3, 2020, and titled “HOT UNCOILING OF METAL,” the content of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes. FIELD The present disclosure relates to metalworking generally and more specifically to systems and methods for processing metal from a coil that may be uncoiled at homogenizing, annealing, or other elevated temperatures. BACKGROUND To transport sheets of metal or other material more easily, the material can be coiled around a rotating mandrel. The resulting coil typically can be moved more easily than if the material were transported instead as one or more flat sheets. After transporting to a suitable location, the coil can be subsequently unwound and removed in cut lengths to permit access to the material in separated sheets for further processing or use. Although useful for transport, the coil form factor may be unconducive to certain other processing activities. For example, certain heat treatment processes involve elevating a material to substantial temperatures and quickly quenching. Such processes may be impracticable to perform on a workpiece corresponding to an entire fully-formed coil, e.g., due to the overall size of the coil having a tendency to retain heat and prevent adequately high heat extraction rates suitable to obtain the desired outcome of a quenching process. Moreover, various materials (such as metal), if handled while in a coil form at high temperature, may be more susceptible to problems (such as scratching, stretching, or welding together of overlapping turns) than if processed in individual layers of discrete, separate, flat sheets. Accordingly, if heat treatment is desired for a coiled material, the material is typically first removed from the coil by cutting off lengths into separate strips prior to any heating operation of the heat treatment, and then the heat treatment is instead individually performed relative to the removed strips, i.e., the respective strips are subjected to suitable heating and quenching operations of the heat treatment process. SUMMARY The term embodiment and like terms are intended to refer broadly to all of the subject matter of this disclosure and the claims below. Statements containing these terms should be understood not to limit the subject matter described herein or to limit the meaning or scope of the claims below. Embodiments of the present disclosure covered herein are defined by the claims below, not this summary. This summary is a high-level overview of various aspects of the disclosure and introduces some of the concepts that are further described in the Detailed Description section below. This summary is not intended to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used in isolation to determine the scope of the claimed subject matter. The subject matter should be understood by reference to appropriate portions of the entire specification of this disclosure, any or all drawings and each claim. Certain examples herein address systems and methods for processing metal from a coil that may be uncoiled at homogenizing, annealing, or other elevated temperatures. For example, the entire coil may be heated at once in a furnace and then unwound while still at an elevated temperature (e.g., while still in the furnace, or shortly after removal from the furnace). This may be more efficient and/or effective in terms of time, space, energy, and/or other criteria than processing a series of individual strips from the coil. The unwound portion of the coil, while still at an elevated temperature may be cooled or quenched by spraying air, water, or other coolant onto the unwound portion of the coil and/or subjected to some other form of quenching system. Since the coil is not separated into individual severed lengths, the resulting quenched portion of the coil can be wound anew and form a new coil. Thus, for example, a heat-treated coil can be obtained without respective drawbacks that might be encountered in a process that instead involves severing the coil into lengths that are individually heated, quenched, and re-attached to one another into a continuous unit for forming a coil. In various examples, a method for heat-treating a coil of metal is provided. The method may include heating the coil of metal within a furnace to elevate a temperature of the metal to be within a pre-heated temperature range corresponding to a homogenizing temperature range or an annealing temperature range. The method may further include unwinding the coil of metal in a heated state in which the metal is within the pre-heated temperature range or before the metal has cooled past a threshold amount below the pre-heated temperature range. The unwinding may produce an unwound portion of the coil. The method may further include quenching the unwound portion