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Roll chocks in Rolling Mill

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 Satyendra  August 8, 2019  0 Comments
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 Chock Inventory Management, Chock Repairs, Roll Chocks. Bearings, Roll Housing, Rolling Mill, Cottrill and Co Machine Tool Auctioneers

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Types Of Chocks, Work Roll. Back Up Roll
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Roll chocks in Rolling Mill Line

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Rolling mills for rolling of steel differ in many aspects with each other. The Trubend

rolling mills are of different sizes and capacities. The mills roll steel Pressbrake
materials of different cross-sections, sizes and qualities and in material Cottrill and

Co Machine

conditions which are either hot or cold. The mills have different
Tool

configurations and speeds of rolling. The configurations of the mills can Auctioneers

vary from cross country, reversing, semi continuous to continuous. The & Asset

Disposal

equipments of rolling mills can have manual operations, mechanical Worldwide

operations, electro-mechanical operations, pneumatic operations,
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hydraulic operations, or a combination of all of these. The controls
provided in the mills can be manual controls, remote controls,
instrumented controls, or fully automated controls. Further in many types
of mills even heat treatment processes are integrated.
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In spite of the so many differences, all the rolling mills have in common
some basic technologies and equipments. All the rolling mills have rolls
for the rolling of materials which are fitted in roll stands. Rolls are either
driven by electric power or friction driven and are to resist many forces for
normal rolling. The roll stands can have two rolls, three rolls, four rolls, six
rolls, or a set of multiple rolls mounted on them depending on the types of
mills.

Rolls for their smooth rotation as well as for resistance to different forces
need ‘bearings’.  Roll bearings are to meet the basic need of the rolling mill
which is the smooth rolling of the steel products. They are friction
reducing devices which provide support to the rolls for effective rolling
with minimum of energy loss. The bearings are designed to withstand high
rolling loads, heavy shocks, varying speeds, and high temperatures. Apart
from this, bearings are designed to endure ingress of scale, dirt, and water.
They play important role in reducing the power consumption and
improving the rolling condition.

The housing of a work roll or backup roll bearing is known as roll chock or
simply chock. Chock is the basic part of a rolling mill. It is mounted in the
window of the roll stand housing between the posts with a small
clearness. The roll stand housing encloses and supports the chock
assembly. The chock also prevents scale getting into the roll neck bearing.
The process stability of rolling mill is significantly influenced by the
clearance between the chocks and housing in mill stands.

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The prime function of roll chock in rolling mill is to house and

accommodate the roll neck bearings. Roll neck bearings serve for
accurate mounting of roll necks, in both horizontal and vertical plane. Roll
chocks are designed to fit into the window of the housing in such a way
that they are important component in a rolling mill for maintaining
accurate positioning of the rolls. During rolling, the load on the rolls gets
transferred to the roll neck bearings and their assembly (chocks).

The important features of roll chocks are that they have special holes
(bores) for slider bearings, antifriction bearings, or oil film bearings. They
have side support planes. For increasing the wear resistance and to
prolong chocks work life, these planes are equipped with lining plates
having different hardness of surfaces. The surface of the roll chock in
contact with the bearing needs precision, and accuracy, as well as close
and smooth finish. A cross section of a four high rolling mill stand
showing roll chocks and antifriction bearing is shown in Fig 1.
Fig 1 A cross section of a four high rolling mill stand showing roll chocks
and antifriction bearing

Roll chocks are very high stressed components of the rolling mill. Any
failure of the chocks leads high production loss in a rolling mill. Failure of
chocks in a rolling mill is basically because of high stresses generated
during start up and shut down condition of rolling mill. Hence, for the
design of chocks, it is essential to know the maximum load acting on a
chock to prevent its failure. Also fatigue failure can occur in the chocks
because of its cyclic loading.

Another important function of the roll chock is that it has to work as an

isolator. Hence, the design requirement of the chock is that it needs to
have a required stiffness to transmit a vibration from a source to receiver.
So while designing a chock the basic two requirements are (i) the chock is
to have strength to sustain a maximum load, and (ii) the chock is to have
minimum deflection.

Roll chocks of different design are needed for top roll and bottom roll in a
two high mill because of the roll screw down mechanism and adjusting
and balancing equipment. Upper roll chock has a support with an
additional lining for holding up the top roll when the rolling mill is idling. In
a four high mill, there are four types of roll chocks namely (i) top back up
roll chock, (ii) top work roll chock, (iii) bottom work roll chock, and (iv)
bottom back up roll chock. Further the design of the roll chock is also
influenced by the type of housing which is used in the rolling mill.
Housing-less roll stands need rigid chocks connected by solid and pre-
stressed joints.

The forces, which act on the rolls during rolling, are completely transferred
on to the housing through the roll chock. Forces acting on the top roll
chock are the force of the hydraulic cylinder transferred through the
bottom rolls through the material to be rolled and through the top work roll.
Top roll chock is constrained at the top of the rolling mill by the screw
down mechanism.

Roll chocks are made either by castings or forgings. In case of cast iron
roll chock, only minor welding repair is possible. The material used for the
manufacture of roll chocks is either gray cast iron or steel. The design of
the roll chock and the material of construction of the roll chocks depend
on (i) type of mill housing, (ii) type of roll such as work roll or back up roll,
(iii) loads generated during the rolling process, and (iv) type of roll neck
bearing. The design of the roll chocks is to provide easy assembling and
disassembling of rolls and roll neck bearings. Also, the design of roll
chocks is to ensure that the ingress of rolling fluids and other
contaminants to influence the bearings are prevented as well as there is
proper lubrication available for bearing.

The axes of the upper and lower work rolls and the large upper and lower
backup rolls (in case of a four high mill) are contained in a common
vertical plane so that the extremely heavy workloads exerted by the screw
down mechanism, through the backup roll chocks and rolls, to the work
rolls is expected to theoretically produce only a vertical load on the work
bearing chocks in the static load condition. However, minor misalignments
inherent in such equipment as a result of manufacturing tolerances, wear,
strain, and the like, and as a result of loads produced by the roll drive and
by the work piece moving through the mill stand, produce very heavy loads
on the work roll chocks tending to upset the coplanar relation of the roll
axes and, as a result, the mill stand housings is required to place heavy
restraining loads on the work roll chocks. These heavy loads have, in the
past, caused wear on the bearing surfaces of both work roll chocks and
the mill housing. To minimize this wear, and to facilitate maintenance of
the roll stands, it is the normal practice to provide wear plates, or liner
plates, in the form of high-strength hardened steel plates on the face of
the mill housing and on the adjacent face of the roll chocks. While these
liner plates have generally been effective in reducing wear and keeping the
chocks centered in the mill housing, there have been instances where the
chocks have been permitted to move sufficiently to produce a hammering
effect causing excessive wear on the liner plates and in extreme cases to
cause wear or damage to the face of the mill housing beneath the liner.
This has been particularly true in the case of the lower work roll chock
which generally has been provided with substantially smaller liner plate
area than the top work roll chock.

The process stability of finishing mill stands is significantly influenced by

the assembly accuracy between the mill stand components. In a four-high
mill assembly, work roll chocks and backup roll chocks are mounted in the
windows of mill housing. During the finishing process, the high-speed of
the steel material being rolled generates a disturbing load and causes the
chattering of the roll chocks in the housing.

For absorbing the undesirable chattering and axial thrust and to avoid the
wear of contacting surfaces between mill components, consumable steel
liner plates which are installed on chocks and housing faying surfaces
need to have a sufficient narrow range of clearances between them. The
liner plates also provide space for lubrication and thermal expansion.
Adequately designed narrow clearances ensure good axial alignment of
rolls and guarantee a precise shape and gauge of the rolled material after
finishing. During the finishing process, the initial clearance is gradually
broadened over time due to liner plate wear. The asymmetric wear of
chock liner plates results in the misalignment of rolls, which is commonly
referred to as a roll cross. This misalignment leads to a deviation of roll
axes from a common plane, and results in additional horizontal loading of
the chocks and the housing surfaces, which further degrades the steel
liners. The wear condition and the residual thickness of the liners are
crucial to the maintenance strategy of clearances between components.
An inadequate clearance range leads to the dynamic instability of the
rolled material during finish rolling.

Roll chocks used in a mill are quite large in number especially in a

continuous rolling mill with large number of rolling stands. Hence the
inventory of chocks and their maintenance needs a close management.
The functioning of the chocks in a rolling mill needs close tracking since
malfunctioning of chocks can results into increase in bearing
consumption, delays in the rolling mill, and product quality defects.

Damaged chocks can also be repaired but the repair of chocks needs skill,
experience, technology and a disciplined process and normally it is carried
out under the supervision of experienced persons. If a damaged chock is
repaired properly then the performance of the repaired chock is similar to
the performance of a new chock.

The repairing process for the chocks consists of thorough cleaning and
inspecting of the damaged chocks and documentation of the inspection
findings. Chocks are then carefully disassembled to ensure components
are not damaged and parts are thoroughly cleaned. After this, the critical
dimensions are measured and then a plan to repair the chock in the best,
most cost-effective way possible is developed. The repair process
normally includes pre-machining of the surfaces to ensure quality welds,
expert welding, arc wire spray welding, stress relieving, and precise finish
machining to ensure proper contact surfaces. To ensure top performance,
bore diameters are verified and the width of shim liners is set. Final steps
in the refurbishment process are inspection, deburring, and sanding. After
this, further steps are cleaning and painting, and careful reassembly,
including bearing load zone rotation.

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