Vol. 53 No. 4 (2016)   New Products & Technologies
Technical Papers

Development of i Box Pickling Tank for Hot Rolled Strip Enabling Energy-Saving, High-Speed Pickling

KOSEI TSUJI
RYUSUKE NAKATSUKA
HIDEAKI SUEMORI
MASAO TAMBARA
KEIJI MIZUTA
NAOHIKO MATSUDA

Recently the production volumes of high tensile strength steel strip has increased. This type of steel requires longer pickling times compared to normal low carbon steel. This prolonged pickling time becomes the bottle-neck in the steel production process. At the same time, a decrease in energy consumption and production costs is desired, calling for greater importance of high-speed pickling. To solve this problem, conventional electric-pumped forced pickling systems, called circulation type tanks, are applicable. Unfortunately this system's electric power consumption will not satisfy the steel maker's operation cost reduction and energy saving requirements. To satisfy such requirements, Primetals Technologies Ltd. has developed an energy-efficient, easily-maintainable pickling system called i Box. This system has a pickling performance equivalent to that of circulation type pickling, while only using the strip driving force to move the acid in the tanks.