During 2023, the new MINO Hot Finishing Mill started up its operations in the Caserta’s plant. After an extensive period of trial production and performance tests, at the end of the same year the Hot Finishing Mill was granted final acceptance by Laminazione Sottile.
A Century of Excellence in Aluminium Production
Founded in 1923, Laminazione Sottile is a leader in thin-gauge aluminium rolling and part of the Laminazione Sottile Group. With subsidiaries across Italy, the UK, Turkey, Germany, Korea, the USA, and Canada, the group produces a vast array of aluminium products for industries such as packaging, automotive, aerospace, cookware, building and lithium batteries.
Laminazione Sottile is also particularly strong in some “high-tech product niches” such as aluminium closures for the pharmaceutical industry, caps for carbonate drinks, flexible packaging for cheese or chocolate and coffee capsules.
The Caserta plant alone exceeds 120,000 tonnes of annual production, offering aluminium coils, sheets, and circles with thicknesses from 6 mm down to an ultra-thin 6 microns.
A Historic Partnership with MINO
For over 40 years, Laminazione Sottile has collaborated with MINO to equip its Caserta facility with cutting-edge rolling technology. This includes a Hot Mill with twin up-coilers, two Cold Mills (the latest one commissioned in 2015), and three advanced Foil Mills (the latest one commissioned in 2022). The latest addition, the Hot Finishing Mill, enhances an already impressive setup, making it one of the world’s few plants capable of casting 600 mm slabs and rolling them to ultra-thin gauges using equipment from a single manufacturer.
Key Features of the Hot Finishing Mill
The new MINO Hot Finishing Mill offers groundbreaking capabilities, ensuring superior product quality and efficiency. Notable features include:
- Maximum strip width of 2150 mm.
- Minimum achievable thickness of 2.5 mm for soft alloys and 3.0 mm for hard alloys.
- A powerful 3500 t maximum rolling force.
- Two down-coilers with unload cars, enabling versatile rolling schedules.
- A fully independent cooling system optimized for final passes.
- Advanced emulsion filtration using gravity filters and plate filters.
- Integrated side trimmer and scrap chopper for precise on-line edge trimming.
- Cutting-edge medium voltage AC drives with synchronous motors.
- Enhanced process control system featuring Automatic Gauge Control (AGC) and profile measurement.
- A sophisticated Self-Learning L2 system, developed with CSM (Centro Sviluppo Materiali), ensuring precise control over thickness, strip profile, and final coil temperature.
Enhanced Efficiency and Quality
The 1 + 1 Hot Rolling Line integrates the Hot Finishing Mill with the existing Hot Roughing Stand, enabling a streamlined process. The roughing stand handles initial passes, transforming slabs into transfer bars, while the finishing mill performs the final precision passes.
This configuration significantly improves thickness uniformity, strip profile, and surface quality. Some of the main improvements in process are due to the dedicated mechanical design of the mill stand together with advanced control of all actuators for thickness and strip flatness.
Better quality of the strip surface also derives from better coolant control and specific tribology, optimized for performing only the final passes at the finishing stand. In fact, such configuration allows the use of specific emulsion formulation and roll roughness in the Hot Finishing Mill, which will not be compromised by the need to avoid refusals in the first roughing passes.
Furthermore, its innovative down-coiler design ensures a defect-free upper strip surface, ideal for downstream processes.
Italy’s First and Only 1 + 1 Hot Rolling Line
With this cutting-edge technology, Laminazione Sottile now operates Italy’s only 1 + 1 Hot Rolling Line and one of the few in Europe. This investment cements the company’s position at the forefront of aluminium rolling, combining increased efficiency with unparalleled product quality.
For more updates on Laminazione Sottile’s innovations, visit their official website www.laminazionesottile.com
