Effective energy saving for cold rolling mill driven by large DC motors in steel production industry

Abstract

A useful technique to reduce power consumption for cold rolling mill driven by large direct current (DC) motors in steel production industry is introduced. The proposed method is based on automatically stopping cooling units and shunt-field winding exciters of DC motors for operating the mill in maintenance mode and long-time stand-by mode. The smart relay modules and normally-closed contractors used for energy saving are controlled via an existing direct digital control (DDC) system. Performance of the proposed technique has been observed at a Sendzimir cold rolling mill using the stand driven by three couples of 2,150 kW DC motors in Thailand. Experimental results show that the proposed method provides saving in energy cost in a short payback period. © 2014 ISSN 2185-2766.