This invention relates to pouring reels for rolling mills.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,020,000 discloses one type of conventional pouring reel where the mill product is gathered into a coil by being directed into an annular chamber formed between inner and outer concentric circular rows of rotating pins. A completed coil is stripped from the reel by raising the coil base plate above the pins. This type of apparatus has several drawbacks. First, when the coil is stripped from the reel, it is no longer radially confined or axially supported, and thus has a tendency to deform or topple over. Secondly, the coil has a tendency to shrink around the inner pins during the coiling operation. This is due to the fact that during coiling, the product is undergoing cooling from its elevated rolling temperature. This makes it difficult to strip the coil from the inner pins, and sometimes results in the inner coil rings being scratched.
A later pouring reel design is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,926,382. Here, the coil is formed around an inner core protruding vertically from a rotatable base plate. During the stripping operation, both the base plate and core are elevated above the reel, thus providing the coil with continuing axial support. A boom-mounted device then surrounds the coil and transfers it to another location. This type of apparatus is relatively complicated, expensive, and still does not avoid the problems caused by the coil shrinking around the central core.