In hot rolling mills, long products (e.g. wire rod, pipes, bars, rails, beams) or wide flat products (e.g. sheets, strip) are fabricated by rolling. A hot rolling mill consists of a reheating furnace, a descaling unit, a roller conveyor, a hot mill stand and a cooling bed. Other peripheral facilities include the cooling system with the cooling tower and a gantry type crane system for loading of the semi-finished products.
In the hot rolling mill, the input materials from the continuous caster (slabs, blooms or billets) are first heated to a temperature above the recrystallization temperature in a reheating furnace. Reheating furnaces can be designed as a walking beam, pusher-type or rotary hearth furnaces. After this, descaling and rolling take place.