A new continuous annealing, pickling, and rolling line just 380 m long that reduces production time from 3 weeks to 20 minutes has been commissioned at Isbergues. The LC2i (Ligne Continue Intégrée Inox) continuous pickling and rolling line for stainless steel was commissioned at Usinor’s Ugine Isbergues works in the north of France in October 1998.
The concept of using a live reduction mill in a stainless annealing and pickling line was developed in the early 1980s. The objective was to take a live pass on annealed and pickled material to develop the surface in order to see if such a coil of strip could be directly cold rolled instead of having to be processed through a surface grinding line. Also to be investigated were the extent to which gauge could be corrected and reduction achieved. 4-High mills and Sendzimir ZS-type mills averaged reductions of 7-8%. However, they had difficulty with shape control, and the material underwent work hardening.