NKK Corporation announced today that a continuous rolling mill for the production of bars and wire rods the company supplied to Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co., Ltd.'s Takamatsu Works has been operating smoothly since it started commercial production in March. The successful commercial operation of a continuous billet rolling mill is the first in the world.

The innovative facility, with a rolling capacity of 90 tons per hour, permits continuous on-line welding and joining of hot round billets, 200mm in diameter and 16m to 24m in length, while they are transferred directly from the continuous caster to the rolling mill. This allows the manufacture of bars and wire rods by means of continuous rolling without interruption between billets.

The continuous rolling mill is composed of a descaler laid out on the upstream end, an automated welder, automated deburring equipment, and an induction heater. The welder and the deburring equipment were both developed by NKK.

The NKK continuous rolling technology offers several advantages:

• Improved yields because of a substantial decrease in losses at both the head and end sections
• Enhanced operational efficiency and productivity due to the elimination of gap time and decrease in mis-rolls
• Manpower savings and a simplified facility because of great reductions in irregular- and short-length products
• Production of wire rods of any optional coil weight
• Reduced maintenance costs

NKK has named this new Endless Bar Rolling System EBROS (pronounced ee-bros) and filed an application to register the brand name. NKK sees the new system as an influential product for rolling lines and intends to expand marketing activities for the system to both domestic and overseas users.