Problems with an ageing drive system, a collaboration between an innovative equipment manufacturer and an open-minded operator, and at the end, two winners - that, in brief, is the story of how the most efficient and powerful hot-rolling mill for aluminium has smoothly started operating and, besides enlarging the product range, is increasing the rolling capacity of the two European Aleris plants in Koblenz and Duffel.rnAt the time, the motive for the modernisation was the existing 148" rolling mill at Aleris Aluminium Koblenz GmbH. This had been delivered in the early 1960s to the then Kaiser Aluminium in Koblenz and during the next decades served as a roughing stand for the rolling of aluminium plates and strips. The rolling mill made its successive owners Kaiser, Hoogovens Aluminium, Corus Aluminium and finally Aleris one of the leading suppliers of plates for the aviation industry, with a large market share among renowned aircraft manufacturers suchrnas Airbus, Boeing and Embraer. Technological changes in aircraft engineering brought ever more strict requirements in many respects: new alloys, closer dimensional tolerances and thicker plates for the production of structural components meant that the loading of the 148" mill was constantly increasing. To an increasing extent the load limits were becoming more evident, and these could not be overcome even by a number of rebuilding measures - during which for example, in the 1980s the two-stage drive was refurbished and provided with two additional motors. In 2004 the decision was made to install a complete new main drive system, whose characteristics would satisfy every need.
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