Texarkana Aluminum produced the first coil on the new four-stand hot tandem mill installed at its facility in Texarkana, Texas. The company can now boast that it has one of the most productive and advanced hot rolling mills in North America. The mill is fully capable of meeting the growing demand for 1xxx, 3xxx, and 5xxx coils for diverse industrial sectors and applications, such as common alloys, automotive, can stock, foil stock, transportation, and aerospace.
In 2023, MINO S.p.A. of Italy was awarded the contract by Texarkana to design, supply, and commission a state-of-the-art four-stand hot tandem mill to be installed at the extension of the left roller table of the existing single-stand reversing hot mill supplied by Davy 30 years ago.
With this addition, the hot mill is transformed into a so called “1+4 Hot Rolling Line,” where the pre-existing single-stand reversing hot mill works as a roughing stand and the newly supplied four-stand hot tandem mill works as a hot finishing stand. The transfer bar from the roughing stand is transferred via the left roller table to the new hot tandem mill at a thickness ranging from 0.8 inch (20 mm) to 1.57 inch (40 mm), to be rolled in the hot tandem mill to achieve in one pass the final gauge ranging from 0.079 inch (2 mm) to 0.394 inch (10 mm).
This 1+4 configuration is considered one of best available in the world, matching unparalleled output rates with superior quality in terms of thickness tolerance, strip crown, flatness, and final temperature achieved in the outgoing hot rolled coils. Moreover, thanks to the short interpass time occurring between a thickness reduction and the next one, the configuration prevents material recrystallization between the reductions and allows the mill to achieve ideal crystallographic texture in the outgoing coils, making them suitable for the most demanding final applications.
The gearboxes were designed by MINO’s technical specialists, and its components were fabricated by specialized suppliers in northern Italy. All the parts were assembled, completed with lubrication systems, and rotation-tested in MINO’s gear-boxes testing station, located in the same MINO’s Alessandria workshop in Alessandria, Italy. Before delivery to the U.S., the hot tandem mill was designed, manufactured and fully pre-assembled at the Alessandria workshop. Full pre-assembly complete with all on-board piping, sensors, and cabling, reflects the supplier’s commitment to quality manufacturing and to smooth and fast site installation.
Transporting this massive equipment — which weighed over 3,000 tons (including machinery, hydraulics, cooling, electrics, and instrumentation) — required 200 containers and 80 cases, making the logistics from Italy to Texas a project in itself.
To control the hot tandem mill at the high production rates demanded for this process, MINO’s Process Control’s AVANTI™ TCS system was implemented to provide AGC control and inter-stand tension control, including model based predictive controls. This is accompanied by powerful AC main drives and controls, also engineered by MINO Automation for continuous and reliable operation.
Tekarkana Aluminum is the aluminum rolling division of Ta Chen International Inc. (TCI), a leading master distributor of stainless and aluminum coils, sheets, plates, long products, tubes, and PVFs. Following the acquisition of Texarkana in 2018, TCI decided to invest massively in the Texas facility, including the installation of a brand new four-high cold rolling mill (supplied and commissioned by MINO in 2024) and the latest four-stand hot tandem mill.