text: The EPS process (see Figure 2) begins with hot rolled strip steel in coil form. This steel pays off of an uncoiler, then passes through a machine which serves the purpose of "scale breaker", "leveler" or both. This machine (see Figure 2) works the material between sets of hardened rollers.  This has the effect of removing the curvature of the strip ("coil set") and breaking loose the outer layers of mill scale which encase the steel strip.
  After passing through the "scale breaker/leveler" machine, the steel strip enters the first "EPS slurry blasting cell". Slurry blasting is a wet abrasive blasting process that combines a fine-particle metallic abrasive with a "carrier liquid" (the most common one being water). This abrasive + water slurry mixture is fed into a rotating impeller which propels it at high velocity across the object to be cleaned (see Figure 3).  Slurry blasting is a method for removing rust/scale, for blast cleaning and shot peening.  Cleaning agents can be introduced into the carrier liquid to reduce smut and aid in rust prevention.
  An EPS slurry blasting cell is composed of eight of the slurry discharge heads shown in Figure 3 – four for the top surface and four for the bottom surface of the strip. Inside the slurry blasting cell, jets of water cleanse the steel strip of both the abrasive particles and the dislodged mill scale. An EPS production system may use multiple EPS slurry blasting cells arranged in tandem, so the steel strip passes from one cell into the next, then into the next, and so on. Multiple cells increase the exposure of the steel strip to the slurry blast streams, thereby allowing the strip to move faster, yet still achieve the necessary level of scale removal. The strip speed and, therefore, system output increases in rough proportion to the number of EPS slurry blasting cells used.
  The strip emerges from the final blasting cell and is dried using high-velocity air blowers. At this point the strip passes beneath a real-time oxide detector camera, which provides feedback to the line control to assure full oxide removal is accomplished. 
  To conclude the process, the strip may, optionally, have an oil film or lubricant applied, then it is recoiled. Of note is that tension created by the force of the recoiler pulling the strip through the scale breaker/leveler serves to flatten the strip, removing bow, edge wave and minor coil breaks. Also, not shown in Figure 2 is the slurry delivery/recirculation/filtering system.  This closed-loop system collects the carrier liquid, abrasive and removed scale, filters out the removed scale, other contaminants and "undersized" abrasive particles, and returns a cleansed slurry mixture back to the blasting cells.