An Overview of Continuous-Annealing
Technology for Steel Sheet Products*
P. R. Mould
SUMMARY
Although continuous-sheet-annealing facilities have been
used in the North American steel industry for several decades,
their use has been largely restricted to certain products for
which special metallurgical processing is required. These
continuous-annealing (CA) facilities have not been competi-
tive with batch annealing (BA) in producing the highly
ductile and formable carbon-steel sheets required by the
automotive and appliance industries. However, new tech-
nology has been developed over the last 10 years that can
produce continuously annealed carbon-steel sheet with
improved ductility. Furthermore, the new CA technology is
more suitable than that of BA for producing the uniform
high-strength sheets (from relatively lean steel compositions)
that are increasingly being required by automobile
manufacturers.
The metallurgy of the new CA technology is reviewed by
contrasting it with BA technology. The modern CA processes
are briefly described, and the engineering and metallurgi-
cal conseqUences of the differences among several CA processes
are discussed. In addition, the metallurgical factors involved
in producing various sheet products (low- and high-strength,
electrical, and enameling sheets) and tinplate by CA are
reviewed. Finally, the significance of CA to steel producers
and the possible future developments in CA technology are
considered.
INTRODUCTION
As the keynote paper of a four-session symposium on the
metallurgy of continuously annealed sheet, it may appear
inconsistent to state that there is little new about continu-
ous annealing (CA) as a process for softening sheet and
tin-mill products. Nevertheless, this is true, because CA is
widely used in North America and throughout the world to
produce a variety of sheet products, such as hot-dip-
galvanized sheets, tinplate, stainless-steel sheets, and
nonoriented silicon-steel sheets. On the basis of AISI ship-
ments for these products in 1980, it is estimated that about
seven million tons of sheet and tinplate products are
continuously annealed each year in the United States alone.
Despite this wide-spread use, CA has never been used
significantly to produce carbon-steel sheets for the large
automotive and appliance markets because, until recently,
the properties (particularly formability and aging resis-
tance) of sheets produced by CA have been inferior to those
produced by box-annealing (BA) sheets. However, it is for
the automotive and appliance market segments that CA is
attracting so much attention today.
By incorporating overaging into the CA cycle (Figure 1),
Japanese steelmakers have demonstrated that improved
·,Editor's note: This paper is a condensation of the keynote paper by the same title from
the conference proceedings Metallurgy of Continuous·Annealed Sheet Steel. edited by
Bruce L. Bramfitt and P.L. Mangonon, Jr., The Metallurgical Society of AIME, Warrendale,
Pennsylvania. Copyright 1982.
18
TEMP,OC
1600 r-" Intercritical}
!! Soak Temp 800
I I Subcritical
1200 I
600
~ Various Cooling Rates
T;"on
: Overaging (Time varies
800
\---
"",n.. ""'J
400
..
o 2 4 6 8
TIME, minutes
Figure 1. Schematic representation of the annealing cycles
that form the basis of the new continuous-annealing technology.
forming properties and aging resistance (which are impor-
tant requirements of the automotive and appliance mar-
kets) can be developed in continuously annealed sheets.
Although the properties of some continuously annealed
sheet grades, such as drawing-quality special-killed (DQSK)
sheet, are still not equivalent to box-annealed sheets, there
are other advantages of CA that make it an attractive
process for steel producers: improved quality, lower pro-
duction cost, and improved product versatility. Better flatness
results from the in-line tension that produces thermal
flattening. Also, because a single strand of sheet is annealed,
the temperature control is better than for BA, and more-
uniform properties along the coil length are obtained. The
presence of in-line electrolytic cleaning provides a cleaner
surface than for box-annealed sheet, which in North America
is usually not electrolytically cleaned.
The production economies, which have been well
documented by the Japanese,l,2 stem from shorter processing
times, lower handling and labor costs, and the improved
yield (reduced damage losses) resulting from the combina-
tion of several operations in the CA line. Excellent control
of annealing temperature and rapid cooling make CA an
ideal process for producing the high-strength steel sheets
(35-150 ksi yield strength) now being used by the automo-
bile industry.
Considering all these aspects, with CA a more versatile
mix of low- and high-strength sheet products can be pro-
duced than with BA, and thus there is a high commercial
interest in CA technology. Several lines are in operation in
Japan, others are under construction in Europe and South
America, and still others are planned for North America.
Therefore, it is appropriate that the metallurgy of CA be
JOURNAL OF METALS· May 1982
reviewed at this time so that the technology can be better
understood, its limitations recognized, and further areas
for development identified. This paper reviews the broad
technology of CA from the following aspects:
• comparison of the metallurgy of CA and BA,
• description of modern CA processes and the engineering
and metallurgical consequences of the differences among
the CA processes,
• review of the metallurgical factors involved in the pro-
duction of various sheet and tin-mill products,
• significance of CA to steel producers, and
• future developments in CA technology.
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE
METALLURGY OF CA AND BA
The tight-wound coils used in batch, annealing have a
large thermal mass and, hence, the heating and cooling
rates are slow and the soak time at temperature is long.
As a result, several days are required for BA, as shown
schematically in Figure 2. In addition, the adjacent wraps
of the box-annealed coils have an increased tendency to
stick together as the annealing temperature is increased.
Also coarse carbides, which are deleterious to formability,
form at high BA temperatures. For these reasons, the soak
temperature in BA is usually limited to about 700-730°C
(1290-1340°F), which is close to the Al equilibrium tem-
perature shown in the portion of the Fe-Fe3C equilibrium
diagram in Figure 2b. Although the ferrite contains the
maximum amount of carbon in solid solution at this tem-
perature, the slow cooling associated with BA results in
near complete precipitation of carbon by the time ambient
temperature is reached.
In CA, the single-sheet strand is heated to the annealing
temperature very quickly, the soak time is short, and the
cooling rate is relatively rapid so that the total cycle takes
only a few minutes (usually 4-8 min, Figure 2c). Because
there is no danger of sticking in CA, and because the short
times minimize carbide coarsening; the maximum annealing
temperature can be raised above the Al temperature so
that recrystallization and grain growth can be promoted.
The rapid, nonequilibrium cooling during CA inhibits the
complete precipitation of carbon from ferrite solid solution,
and, as a consequence, overaging at an intermediate tem-
perature (Figure 2c) is needed to encourage such precipita-
A. B.
Fe-Fe3 C
EQUILIBRIUM
BOX ANNEALING DIAGRAM
1600
Q'+,),
A1
TEMP,
cF
800
400
Q' +
0 1 2 3 .01 .02
TIME, days C,wt%
Figure 2. Comparison of schematic box- and continuous-annealing cycles with the Fe-Fe3C equilibrium diagram.
JOURNAL OF METALS· May 1982
tion. Without overaging, quench and strain aging would
result and impair the formability of the sheet.
Despite overaging, more carbon is retained in solid solu-
tion during CA than in BA, and, as a result, even aluminum-
killed continuously annealed steels show some aging effects
unless special additions of titanium or niobium are made
to combine with the residual carbon. By controlling the
amount of carbon retained in solid solution (by controlling
the steel composition, cooling rate, and overaging), bake
hardening can be obtained in continuously annealed sheets3
whereby strengthening occurs during the paint baking of a
formed part. The factors affecting strain aging and bake
hardening will be discussed later.
MODERN CA PROCESSES
Modern CA lines are, in fact, continuous-annealing and
processing lines because they combine-several processes-
electrolytic cleaning, annealing (including overaging), and,
in most cases, temper rolling. The CA processes differ
essentially in the cooling media used to effect cooling from
the annealing temperature. Gas-jet cooling, in which
nitrogen/hydrogen gas is passed through jets to impinge
the steel sheet, is used by Nippon Steel Corporation (NSC)
in its commercial lines at Kimitsu and Yawata Works.
Cooling rates of about 5-30CO/s (9-54Fo/s) can be achieved. 4
By using specially designed cooling nozzles, Kawasaki has
been able to increase the cooling rate of the gas-cooling
system in its KM-CAL line at Chiba Works to 30-50Co/s
(54-90Fo/s).5 To increase the cooling rates and hence improve
the capability to produce high-strength sheets, NSC has
designed a mixed-spray (gas and water) cooling system
capable of cooling at rates of 80-300Co/s (144-540Fo/s).6 In
Belgium, Centre de Recherches Metallurgigues (CRM) has
developed a process for quenching the moving sheet into
hot water to achieve cooling rates of 25-150Co/s (45-270Fo/s),7
whereas Nippon Kokan (NKK) quenches the sheet directly
into cold water and achieves cooling rates in excess of
1000Co/s (1800Fo/s).8 With the NKK system, it is impos-
sible to arrest the cooling at the overaging temperature
with the high cooling rates (> 1000Co/s) associated with
this system, so it is necessary to reheat the sheet to the
overaging temperature. To avoid the cost of this reheating
for those low-strength grades for which there is little advan-
tage in rapid cooling, a means of cooling the sheet by
c.
CONTINUOUS ANNEALING
800
.---------- 600
'" Rapid Cooling TEMP,
Fe3 C
L. \
.--.,
Overaging
.
400
200
°c
\ \. 0
.03 .04 2 4 6 8
TIME, min
19