Strip Width MeasurementHot Mills
Width gauges were first used in Hot Strip Mills in the early 1950's. They were typically positioned at the exit of the finishing train and mounted in a house for protection against the hot mill environment, and to permit easy access for frequent, routine maintenance.
Today, there is a much wider range of applications for width gauges in Hot Strip Mills:
There are many width gauge suppliers around the world whose products can be used in the least demanding of these applications, but only the KELK Accuband Strip Width Gauge has proven superior in all of them.
The Accuband stereoscopic width gauge has special features developed by KELK to enable it to outperform all other gauges in the most demanding HSM environments. It can:
- withstand the shock of working directly on a roughing stand
- keep itself clean for long periods of time without routine maintenance
- measure without backlighting at lower strip temperatures than any other gauge
- detect strip edges despite the presence of steam and spray
- be calibrated online using a dynamic calibrator traceable to NIST
Some KELK innovations - such as the KELK Air Nozzle introduced in 1982 - are now being widely copied by other width gauge manufacturers, but no one has ever been able to duplicate ACCUBAND performance. In direct comparison tests no other gauge has ever been proven to measure moving strip more accurately. And no other gauges have worked as long as Accuband without becoming obsolete.
Continuous development has kept the KELK Accuband ahead of all competitors, and makes it the best value in width measurement.
Cold Mills
Superior KELK width gauging technology is also available for process measurement, quality control measurement, and strip steering in less rigorous 'cold' applications:
(*KELK is the only width gauge supplier to succeed in this application!)
