Industrial Length and Speed Control

LSV Customer Applications

Download |

Mass Flow Regulation in a Rolling Mill with a C-frame and an integrated LSV

In order to meet the dimensional accuracy and tolerance specified by automotive and industrial consumers, modern rolling mills employ a technique called Automatic Gauge Control (AGC), which utilizes mass flow calculations to meet the precision tolerances on thickness. Due to their high processing speed, Polytec's LSVs offer almost immediate control to thickness variations.

Download |

Motion Measurement at a Thin Slab Steel Mill

The steel industry needs precise length and velocity measurements from red-hot objects for regulating and controlling production processes. In the thin slab steel mill, a strand of liquid steel is continuously poured into an ingot mold. The aim of the measurement presented here was to determine without any contact the length and transport velocity (= casting speed of the slab poured) of the hot strand to be cut.

Download |

Non-Contact Speed Sensor Reduces Breaks in Paper Mill

Download |

LSVs Regulate Undesired Rotational Motion in Steel Rolling Mills

At BGH’s Edelstahl Freital facility, twoe LSV-6000 velocimeters are used in a planetary mill to regulate the process to zero rotational velocity. The first LSV measures the translational velocity and, thus, the length of the steel rod to achieve precision cutoff control. The second LSV measures the rotational velocity. This measurement is fed back into the drive system of the planetary mill to eliminate rotation of the rod.

Download |

Speed Synchronization in an Aluminum Mill

Alunorf in Neuss, Germany, the world's largest aluminum rolling and remelt plant, uses Polytec’s non-contact, laser-Doppler instrumentation to simultaneously measure length and speed of aluminum plates in the manufacturing process. Several LSV-6000 Laser Surface Velocimeters are integrated into the production line and provide length and speed data for process control.

Control of Flying Tube Saws

Flying saws are being used increasingly in tube mills. In order to hit the cut-length value, with minimum wear to the saw blade and other mechanical components, the track speed of the flying saw must be matched with the linear speed of the tube. The LSV can measure tube speed and length directly, without the issues related to contact measurement devices, such as slippage, chatter and changing wheel diameter. The improved feedback to the flying saw results in tighter cut length tolerance, better synchronization of the saw track speed to the tube linear speed and increased saw blade life.

Length and Velocity Measurement in Tube Mills

Online, high-precision, laser-based velocity and length measurement reduces the manufacturing costs, improves quality and increases yield in tube mills. Tube wall thickness, diameter, eccentricity are measured by passing the tube through multichannel gamma-ray measuring frames. Integrating the Polytec LSV length measurement with these quality measurements enables precise allocation and positioning of quality data along the length of the tube.

Automated Gauge and Elongation Control

Cold band is re-rolled in temper mills to produce the final degree of levelness and surface quality. The gauge is determined by the difference in the strip speed when arriving at and leaving the roll stand. Until now, the gauge has been measured using encoded rollers. By replacing contact speed measurement with laser surface velocimetry, measurement errors caused by slippage and contact problems can be eliminated. At a large stainless steel manufacturer, the LSV was used to provide a measurement of the gauge to ± 0.02 %.

Length Measurement in Manufacturing of Conveyor and Driving Belts

A leading manufacturer of driving and conveyor belts uses several laser surface velocimeters for length measurements at the cutting station. Thus, customer-specific cuts could be significantly simplified and automated. The cut-to-length accuracy achieved with the LSV is 0.1 % and independent of the surface of the belts.

High-Precision Real Time Measurement of Car Speed

A novel application of Laser Surface Velocimeter (LSV) technology is being investigated at Renault for Driving Assistance System evaluation and test. Renault is incorporating the LSV as an on-board reference sensor to measure real-time vehicle ground speed with better than 0.1 km/h accuracy. This accuracy is found to be better than other methods commonly used for ground speed measurement including GPS.

Download |