Steelwork: Coiler

In a hot rolling mill the process of hot rolling is carried out, a metalworking process in steel production: rolling at high temperatures makes possible a significant reduction in thickness. For example, crude steel billets are reshaped into hot-rolled strip (a hot-rolled product with a rectangular cross section and a width of at least 600 mm).
The coiler is the last production step in the hot rolling mill of the Stahlwerk (steelworks) of Thyssen-Krupp in Duisburg. On the recording you can hear the hot-rolled strip being wound into a coil (a steel strip wound onto a mandrel) in a fully automated, mechanized process. Next, the coil is bound and marked. Before the coils are sent to the cold rolling mill, they are chemically cleaned. This occurs in the descaler or “pickle”, which removes scales and residue from both sides of the strip.

Sound recordist: Konrad Gutkowski / Marie-Claire Fink
Video recordist: Konrad Gutkowski / Marie-Claire Fink
Photographer: Konrad Gutkowski / Marie-Claire Fink