Plate quench

Abstract

A plate quenching apparatus is described as having a horizontally elongated chamber in which a plurality of rows of metal, tire-like rollers are used to support an element, such as a number number of metal plates, as the element moves along a horizontal pathway between opposing rows of nozzles above and below the pathway. Unfortunately, the metal rollers create wakes when large quantities of quenching liquid are used. These wakes literally surround tear-shaped areas immediately downstream the rollers and prevent adequate amounts of quenching liquid from contacting the element in these areas, especially at the beginning of the quenching process wherein it is critical to uniformly contact the element with quenching material. A plurality of nozzles are specially positioned between adjacent rows of the metal rollers to break up the wakes and insure that the sheet of metal is uniformly contacted with quenching liquid to prevent the element from becoming buckled, warped, or twisted during the quenching operation. A unique nozzle arrangement is provided adjacent the exit of the apparatus for preventing large amounts of spent quenching liquid, carried atop the element, from exiting the apparatus with the element. The nozzles located above the traveling element are arranged to provide overlapping streams of liquid to continuously contact the longitudinal trailing ends of the element with steady streams of quenching liquid adjacent the opening through which the web enters the chamber of the plate quenching apparatus to prevent alternate cooling and reheating of these ends which normally occurs when the nozzles are inadequately arranged to produce spaced and not overlapping streams of liquid.