Monster Billet Mill Speeds Up Forged Ingot Machining

When the most powerful steel ingot milling machine ever built removes metal from forged billets at 300 cubic inches per minute -- a rate never before seen in the steel industry -- an Ingersoll Cutting Tool makes the chips.

Up to 3/4 inches of "as-forged surface" is lifted from the steel ingots, removing scale and irregularities and producting the bright metal finish required by customers in the final milled products.

The 24-inch diameter, 6-inch thick cutter features Ingersoll's On-Edge design, which permits increased chip loads and allows for large chip gullets. This tool can produce the required speeds and feeds and cut up to nine 140-inch passes before its Titanium Aluminum Nitride (TiAIN) coated inserts require indexing.

What moves 220 tons an hour and shaves closer than a blade?

Most ingots in an aluminum rolling mill go through a scalping operation where the top and bottom are milled to remove any surface blemishes and produce as uniform a surface quality as possible. It is a critical operation because any surface defect will be stretched many times its length during rolling, causing literally tons of processed material to be scrapped. The productivity of the entire mill depends on that of the scalper.

The Ingersoll Cutting Tools' 94-inch scalper (shown above) is propelled to a speed of 12,500 sfm by a 1000-hp motor. Adjustable cutter inserts are aligned within .0005" to produce surface finishes of 32 microinches or better while removing up to 1-1/8" in a single pass.