CONTINUOUS ANNEALING METHOD FOR STEEL PLATE

PURPOSE:To reduce a fundamental unit of fuel by increasing partition walls in a continuous annealing furnace, and changing the lengths of a preheating zone, a heating zone and a soaking zone according to materials to be passed. CONSTITUTION:The inside of a continuous annealing furnace is so arranged, for example, as to permit provision of partition walls 1 in 9 places, so that the lengths of its preheating zone, heating zone and soaking zone are made variable. The walls 1 are so set as to use sections 1, 2 as the preheating zone, sections 3-6 as the heating zone and the sections 7-10 as the soaking zone in the case of annealing a high load materialIcontinuously and to use the sections 1-6 as the preheating zone, the section 7 as the heating zone and the section 8-10 as the soaking zone in the case of annealing a low load material II continuously. In this way, if the length of the furnace is divided so as to suit each material to be passed and the material is annealed continuously, the best fundamental unit of fuel is obtained.