US2036101A - Continuous rolling mill - Google Patents

Description

March 31, 1936. w; ROHN CONTINUOUS ROLLING MILL Filed Nov. 14, 1951 2 Sheets-Sheet l Fig.

March 31, 1936. w, ROHN 2,036,101

CONTINUOUS ROLLING MILL Filed. Nov. 14, 1951 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 fnvenior: mm

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hiidh llllll GNTlUS a J ilhclm hn, Hu-on-thedtllain, Gerry Application November lid, ran, denial no. tracts lln Geny November ll'l, i030 2 Dias.

"lilllis invention relates to improvements in and relating to continuous rolling mills.

Continuous rolling mills with a separate drive for the separate passes have already-been dea scribed which enable wires to be rolled in a simple and economical manner down to 1 mm., whereas previous thereto it was only possible to roll economically down to about 5 mm., and from this thickness of wire further reduction had to be 1m effected by drawing. $uch rolling mechanisms have been found to be of particular advantage for the treatment of hard material, as for'example special steels and rope wires. For material, such as brass or copper, which is worked more easily it has not been possible hitherto to introduce these constructions to any considerable extent as these rolling mills are comparatively expensive so that for materials whicharecapable of being worked easily drawing to below 5 mm. or below '3 mm. was more economical duly considering the costs of installing the mills and duly considering the costs of the rolling rings.

Closer inspection of the construction of rolling mills shows that the largest portion of the costs of construction of the rolling mills is due to the toothed wheel gearing between the separate driving motors and the rolling rings, and that the largest portion of the costs of operation is due to the cost of the comparatively large and heavy rolling rings. For rolling material of average hardness and for soft material, particularly when this is to be rolled at high rolling speeds, it is possible to effect a reduction of about one-third to one-quarter in the costs of installation and operation by reducing the diameter of the rolling rings to such an extent that toothed wheel gearing can be omitted between the driving members and the rolling rings, and that the rolling rings are allowed to operate directly at the speed of rotation of the driving members without intermediate gear wheels. For rolling material of average hardness or for soft material it is sufiicient for the diameter of the rolling rings to be about six times or at most ten times the diameter of the wires to be rolled. In this manner it is suffi 'cient for rolling 5 mm. wires to use rolling rings having a diameter of 40 to 50 mm. and for rolling wires between 2 and 1 mm. to use even rolling rings having a diameter of from 25 to 35 mm. m When the drive is eifected by normal motors having the speed of 1,000 revolutions per minute there are obtained rolling speeds amounting to from 90 to 160 m. per minute, speeds which are regarded as normal for the cold rolling of mate rial of average hardness.

("Ut- 00 m) For soft material these rolling speeds can be increased to twice and three times that amount,

so that there are used motors having a speed of from 2,000 to 3,000 revolutions per minute. In such a form of construction the driving members 0 then constitute the essential portion of the costs of installation, whereas the expense for the additional mechanical devices only amount to about one-third of the costs of the motors. in the known constructions, however, the mechanical l0 portion of the rolling mills amounts to about three times the cost of the motors which serve as driving members. It will thus be seen that the costs of installation of rolling mechanisms according to the invention are considerably re- 1 duced, whilst their range of use is extended to a conslderableextent to materials which are capabio of being worked more easily, particularly also as it is possible to use rolling rings having a diameter of 30 to 50 mm. which cost only from 20 1/15 to of the cost of rolling rings having a diameter of 125 mm.

According to the particular rolling problem to be solved the inventive idea as described above can be carried out in practice in various ways as 25 mentioned below and illustrated by the accompanying drawings of which A Fig. l is a side view, partly in section, of a single rolling station together with its driving memher the supporting bed not being shown.

Fig. 2 is a sectional side view of a detail of a rolling station in which the shafts carrying the rolling rings are coupled together by toothed wheels.

Fig. 3 shows a further mode of performance of 35 a single station in which the rolling rings are mounted on shafts coupled by flexible joints with the motor shaft.

Figs. 4 and 4a illustrate the bearing of the shafts carrying the rolling ring, Fig. 4 being a tit sectional side view and Fig. do a front view of a rolling station. A

Fig. 5 shows means for positioning the rolls of a station according to Figures i and 4a.

Fig. 0 shows diagrammatically a rolling mill looking in the direction of rolling. j

Figs. 7 and 7a. show in side and front elevation respectively the construction oil a rolling mill in which the driving members consist of electric motors each of which is built together with a simple gear train so as to form a driving unit removable as a whole.

For material which is capable of being worked easily the rolling rings can be mounted directly in a flying manner on the shafts of the drlved ing motors, in which case it may be preferable to make a roller bearing of the motor which is used at the side of the shaft, somewhat heavier than usual so as to be capable of better withstanding rolling pressures. The additional expenses incurred by such a dimensioning of a motor bearing are extremely small in comparison with the costs which would be incurred if it were necessary to provide a separate bearing for the rolls. For rolling material which can be worked easily the second rolling ring does not require a separate drive but may operate in the known manner as a. frictionally' driven roller. As the necessary setting range in multi-roll rolling mechanisms, which always have to carry out the same operation, need only be very small the setting device for the second rolling ring may also be constructed very simply and cheaply.

An example of construction is shown in Figure l of the accompanying drawings in which, for the purpose of positioning, the shaft 0 carrying the second rolling ring is not displaced parallel in the usual manner, but is swung about its end opposite the rolling ring about the point e. With the small positioning limits which are here necessary the angle at which the two shafts must be inclined to one another in the extreme case is extremely small.

For a somewhat harder material the motor shaft a and the shaft 0 of the second rolling ring a. may be coupled togeth v the toothed wheels ft and I2 as shown in gore 2.

For harder and thicker material ma" of advantage not to place the rolling rings directly on the motor shaft but on shafts, which may be mounted separately and coupled with the motor shafts solely by a flexible joint. Such a construction is shown diagrammatically in Figure 3 in which the shafts a and c of the two rolling rings 2) and d are mounted separately in roller bearings gi, g2, g3, g i and are coupled together by toothed wheels fl and f2. In this case the shaft a is connected to the motor shaft 71, by a flexible joint and the motor is fixed to the supporting bed A by screws V and Vi.

Finally there is shown in Figure 4 a form of construction which enables the advantages of smaller rolling rings, driven directly at the same speed as the driving motor without intermediate wheels, to be also applied to thicker and harder material. The limit of using small rolling rings is defined to a lesser extent by the rolling rings themselves than by the impossibility of making the bearings for the roller shafts sufiiciently strong so as to be capable of withstanding higher strains. If, however, the known principle of the six roll rolling mechanism is applied in an analogous manner to the present constructional problem this difficulty can also be overcome.

Figure 4; again shows rolling rings b and 02 mounted on the free ends of the shafts a and c which are coupled together by the toothed wheels fl and it. The shaft o; is connected to the motor shaft'h by the elastic coupling i. The bearing of the two roller shafts a and c is in this case, however, formed by four pairs of roller bearings GI, G2, G3, G5, G5, G6, Gl, Gil (of which G6 and G8 do not appear in the drawings). The positioning can be effected in a particularly convenient manner as indicated in Figure 5 in that the two roller shafts are mounted in two supporting members ll and Z2 which are connected together by a hinge like link is these supporting members being capable of being moved towards and away irom one another by the positioning screw m.

The construction of the rolling mill in which direct gearing from driving units as described mic-re is provided is more economical and cheap- 5 er than the construction of rolling mills in which separate toothed wheel gean'ngs are provided outside the driving elements. When using driving elements containing gearing the driving members can be simply screwed to a bed and if desired 10 may be removed rapidly and conveniently. When using separate intennediate gearing between the driving element and the operating point it is necessary to provide toothed wheels outside the driving elements in the machine frame and to 15 accommodate them exactly one to another, which makes the machine considerably more complicated and more expensive. According to the present invention the provision of this separate intermediate gear is omitted and the machine instead of containing three constructional elements, the driving members, intermediate gearing and rolling rings, only contains two. This fundamental idea leads to a considerable technical simplification and thus to a reduction in cost 25 either when the rolling rings are coupled to simple motors as driving memb s o" ctheo'; wheel a shaft 3 drives Ve side.

rolling stations as cioseli another the gears under ranged above or below the electric motor so the overall width of the driving units be ed on the bed is not larger than that of. trio motors themselves. The rolling "o be 45 placed on these driving units may be of larger diameter, for example to mm.

According to the invention for the kind of con struction described first the various speeds of rotation of the separate rolling ring pairs, adapted to becombined so as to form a continuous rolling train, are not obtained the ":"i? of various toothed wheel gearings between t e driving motor and the rollers, but by diffs t numbers of revolution of the separate dli members. In order to obtain the necessary adaptation of the numbers of 11113110128 requirements of operation the motors of the din ing members may either be of the ct; .ulativeiy wound compound type D 'ued an resist: G3 ances in series In many cases a combination o bo erable. For the second where the driving ele motors built together v described above more i of the numbers of royal of rolling rings can be motors of gradually increasing numbers of revo Iution all built together with a constant standardized. simple or by using throughout the same type of motor of them for the s number of revcluti as and bull of constrr oni electric 9,080,10l varying rrom stand to stand to meet the desired i increase ,of speed.

The above description gives by way of example a iew forms of construction of the essential fundamental idea. The details of the arrangement, mounting and coupling of the rolling rings may be carried out in very diverse ways without departing from the scope of the invention: i. e. to use for continuouswire rolling mills rolling rings mounted on the free ends of the shaitsthe diameter of which is so small that they can be driven directly by the separate standardized driving elements which are simply screwed to a bed. t

Although the costs of installation of a rolling mechanism according'to the present invention, are less than those of the rolling mechanisms otherwise usual the driving members incase such a machine had to be put out .01 work prematurely have a much higher value'than those of previously known rolling mills. In the case of the known arrangements the intermediate gears connecting the driving'motors to the rolling rings being separately in the framework oi the machine from the driving members can be used advantageously only in the rarest of cases; As the separately constructed intermediate gears in the known arrangements form an essential portion v of the costs of installation of the machine a considerable portion or the costs expended becomes practically valueless if the machine is used no more whereas the driving members of rolling mechanisms according to the invention may be used profitably for any other suitable purpose.

I claim: I

l. A continuous rolling mill for substantially reducing in thickness rods and wires preferably for rolling soft material down tc'a diameter of l m. m. comprising a bed, a plurality of driving devices mounted thereon, each driving device including an electric motor and being detachable from the said bed as a whole, and a plurality of rolling rings mounted coaxially to the shafts of and directly driven by the driving devices to cooperate with rolling rings mounted on separate shafts, the diameter or the said rolling rings being reduced to such an extent that usual rolling speed with commercial driving motors of 300 to 3000 revolutions per minute is obtained, the said rolling rings being coupled by flexible joints with the motor shafts, the shafts of both rolling rings being each journaled in two pairs of wide roller bearings, both pairs of roller bearings being situated on the same side of the rolling rings and the adaptation of the various speeds of rotation of the separate rolling ring pairs in relation to one another being effected solely by electrically adjusting the speeds of the driving motors.

. 2. A continuous rolling mill for substantially reducing in thickness rods and-wires preferably for rolling soft material down to a diameter of 1 m. m. comprising a bed, a plurality of driving devices mounted thereon, each driving device including an electric motor and being detachable from the said bed as a whole, and a plurality of rolling rings mounted coaxially to the shafts of and directly driven by the driving devices to cooperate with rolling rings mounted on separate shafts, the diameter of the said rolling rings being reduced to such an extent that usual rolling speed with commercial driving motors of 300 to 3,000 revolutions per minute is obtained, the said rolling rings being coupled by flexible joints with the motor shafts, the shafts of both rolling rings being each journaled in two pairs of wide roller bearings, the axes of which are fixed in two brackets which are adjustably connected to each other by a hinge-like joint and the adaptation of the various speeds of rotation of the separate rolling'ring pairs in relation to one another being effected solely by electrically adjusting the speeds of the driving motors.

- WILHELM BOHN.

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