New cold-rolling mill for Harada Metal Industry successfully rolls first strip

Andritz 20-high cold rolling mill in four-column design at Sendai plant. Photo: Andritz

The new Andritz 20-high cold-rolling mill in four-column design delivered to Harada Metal Industry Co., Ltd. in Japan successfully rolled its first strip on schedule on March 16, 2020.

The first strip with a thickness of 0.027 mm was then rolled on March 25, 2020.

Parallel to mechanical pre-assembly work, ANDRITZ also conducted pre-commissioning of the automation technology for this project using simulation software. The movements triggered were performed in a kinematized 3D model and reported back to the control system. In this way, it was also possible to test the automated sequences at the same time as the programmed functions before delivery and start-up at the customer’s premises and also to put these sequences and functions into “virtual” operation.

Andritz received an order from Harada Metal Industry Co., Ltd., Japan, in the summer of 2018 to supply a 20-high cold rolling mill in four-column design to produce high-precision quality coils of phosphor bronze with a final strip thickness of 20°microns for its Sendai plant, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. The cold-rolling mill that has now gone into operation on schedule is the fifth plant of this kind to be supplied to Harada by ANDRITZ.

Harada Metal is a privately-owned Japanese company producing phosphor bronze sheets and strip.