What Does
Reversing Mill Mean?
A reversing mill is a rolling mill in which the workpiece is passed forward and backward through a pair of rolls.
The reversing mill is so named because the steel runs back and forth between the rollers, reducing the thickness incrementally with each pass. A reversing mill can be used to reduce material to gauge. Reversing mill plants are preferable for rolling silicon steels and other special grades.
Reversing mills are also known as reversing cold rolling mills.
Corrosionpedia Explains Reversing Mill
In a reversing mill, steel enters the rolling mill from one side, passes through the other side and then comes back through the mill again. Normally it goes left to right through the mill a number of times, being rolled a little thinner each time it goes through.
Rolling mills can use two, three or four rolls. In two-high reversing rolling mills, the rolled metal may pass back and forth through the rolls several times. The disadvantage of reversing mills is that the rolls must be stopped, reversed and then brought back up to rolling speed between each pass. The three-high mill was invented to resolve this drawback. Reversing mills are more expensive than non-reversing rolling mills due to their reversible-drive requirement.
The purpose of the reversing mill is to reduce the thickness of the steel to the customer’s specifications. The hot roll band passes back and forth between the rolls until it reaches the specified thickness.
Benefits of reversing mills include:
- Flexible, low-cost rolling of a wide range of products
- Tight strip thickness and shape tolerances
- Minimum off-gauge length
- High surface quality