Coil coating is a streamlined industrial process where metal strips are continuously coated. This process is the foundation of Globus's expertise, reflecting both its historical roots and its ongoing primary business focus.
Globus champions customer-centric solutions by integrating cutting-edge technology, ensuring the optimal approach for each project.
Coil coating lines are designed to accommodate a wide range of sizes, tailored to specific annual throughput and strip dimensions. With extensive experience across all scales, Globus excels in delivering solutions for:
- Construction and facades, suitable for indoor and outdoor settings
- The automotive and transportation sectors
- Home appliances and office furniture industries
The coil coating industry stands out by offering:
- Enhanced product longevity
- Superior recyclability
- Minimal emissions
- Unmatched precision and quality
- Cost efficiency
The entry section's primary function is to efficiently process incoming coils, preparing and feeding them into the line for uninterrupted operation.
Depending on their characteristics, the coils undergo weighing, alignment with the centerline, and unwinding. Taking care of the critical passages like shearing and joining, every equipment of the entry section is organized to fit the available space at its best.
Globus leverages its extensive experience across various lines to offer specialized and customized solutions, enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of this crucial initial stage.
Depending on the process speed and the optimized cycle time, there are multiple possible shear design options. Most of them includes also sampling systems.
The dynamicity of the Globus engineering process allowed the development of accumulators with different designs and accessories to safely introduce them in customer processes and spaces.
Globus's innovative engineering has led to the development of accumulators featuring various designs and accessories, ensuring seamless integration into customer processes and spatial constraints. These solutions enhance safety and efficiency within the operational workflow.
Two main designs are available for our customers:
The cables-driven accumulator: the motor and the transmission are on the motor side of the line at ground floor. The main advantage is the easy maintenance.
The chains and counterweights driven accumulator: the motor and the transmission are on the top of the tower. The main advantage is space saving.
Globus's accumulators can be equipped with multiple accessories to enhance functionality:
- On-board cranes to allow easy roll change and maintenance.
- A steering system for improved handling.
- Clamps to securely hold the strip in place, ensuring operational stability and safety.
Traces of oils and contaminants (and possibly an oxide layer) are usually present on the strip surface coming from the previous processing (cold rolling or galvanizing). To ensure optimal paint adhesion, the cleaning process removes the contamination from the strip surface. This is achieved through a series of chemical and mechanical treatments, such as alkaline or acidic cleaning, rinsing or brushing.
To achieve the best results, process solution temperatures and concentrations are continuously monitored.
Constructed from stainless steel or polyethylene, spray chambers feature both upper and lower spray bar batteries and containment enclosures, with each spray bar outfitted with application-specific nozzles.
Available in stainless steel or polyethylene, tanks are strategically placed to balance space efficiency and maintenance accessibility, either underneath or adjacent to the tunnels.
Squeegee rolls are located at the entry, exit, and between various spray chambers to maximize the degreasing process's efficiency. These rolls, which can be configured as single or multiple units, play a crucial role in ensuring the thoroughness and effectiveness of the degreasing operation, enhancing the overall quality of the cleaning process.
Traditionally, the squeegee roll substitution is manually managed by the line operators.
Globus developed an innovative fully automated design for safe and easy squeegee roll replacement, minimizing operator interaction with the spray chambers and enhancing safety.
Supporting the cleaning process, auxiliary systems are provided, such as:
- Brushing
- Heating system
- Concentration and temperature controls
- Pumps and exhaust extraction
- Filters
The pretreatment process aims to create a surface layer more resistant to corrosion and to improve the paint adhesion.
Depending on the kind of treatment, the pretreatment products could be applied by roll-coating or by spray and immersion (e.g. phosphating process).
The phosphating process involves several phases (activation, phosphating, rinse).
During the phosphating phase, the strip is immersed in a reaction cell containing phosphoric acid, metal cations and other additives. Depending on the desired metal phosphate coating, multiple reaction cells may be used.
This process integrates additional equipment like heat exchangers, fume scrubbers, cascade water rinse, squeegee rolls, etc.
Usually, the passivation products are applied by chemical coater (see dedicated coater section for more details on the design and product feeding units).
After chemical coating, the strip is dried in a hot air or infrared oven, reaching a temperature of 80 – 100 °C. This step ensures that the chemical product bonds with the metal substrate, which thereby achieves the desired corrosion resistance and adhesion performances.
The strip is then cooled down to 30 – 40 °C by means of cooling rolls or air coolers.
In the painting section there are three main elements:
- Coaters ⭢ Globus paint coaters are designed to ensure the best paint application on the market, achieving precise thickness and uniform distribution on the strip width, thus reducing the line operating costs.
- Painting rooms ⭢ Painting rooms are included in the layout and are provided with a ventilation system and controlled atmosphere.
- Paint feeding system ⭢ Depending on product needs and customer requests, different feeding systems are available
Globus coaters can be equipped with different roll coating heads to suit different requirements, including single or dual-side painting (i.e. paint both the top and bottom sides, or only one face).
Coaters are equipped with load cells to measure the nip pressure, which is shown to the operator on the local panel or in the control room.
A “Quick Color Change” system is also available on Globus painting lines, enhancing line efficiency by allowing paint changes without interrupting production, thus saving time, increasing productivity and reducing scrap.
The feeding system is composed by:
- a pumping system
- a filtration system
- an overflow recovery system.
This historical period is characterized by a strong attention on the energetic resources and the fuel consumption.
Depending on Customer needs, Globus can supply ovens working with different technologies (convection or radiative), offering an extensive portfolio of paint curing technologies (in-house developed and third-party implementation), from gas-fired hot air to IR / NIR, induction, Electron Beam, etc.
In the convection ovens, the PMT can be reached while using hot air heated directly or indirectly from the heating source.
The convection oven design could be flotation, catenary or vertical (depending on the specific application).
To minimize the transportation cost and optimize the installation, Globus ovens are usually designed in modules.
To ensure a uniform distribution and adequate temperature control, the ovens are built in sections and equipped with the necessary instrumentation.
Cooling of the strip is achieved through air, water, or a combination of both.
Water quench is usually installed on a strip guiding system to make sure that the strip is kept centered on the line after exiting the oven.
Mirrored to the entry section, the exit also features an accumulator tower for smooth strip flow and continuous line operation.
As for the entry one, the exit accumulator can be set at floor level and developed in height or underground, depending on customer needs and space availability.
The related design and accessories are also similar to the entry section accumulator.
In the exit section, the strip is wound and the coil is finished and weighed.
Globus offers custom solutions to meet specific client needs, ensuring a high-quality finish.
Globus has developed a variety of systems to enhance spool handling and efficiency, addressing the diverse needs of its clients, always keeping in mind ergonomics and operator's safety.
Control over strip speed and tension is crucial in transporting the material without causing damage to the metal substrate.
This can be achieved by selecting the appropriate number and configuration of tension bridles.
The necessary wrap angle, the number of rolls and their dimension, the presence of snubber rolls, etc. are selected and designed in detail by Globus engineers.
Depending on customer requirements, an optional precleaning section can be installed in the line.
The design of the equipment is the same as described for the Cleaning Section. The Precleaning Equipment is installed in the Entry Section of the line: this helps in reducing contamination of the entry accumulator rolls, which may lead to quality issues.
The quality achieved in the coating process is significantly affected by the flatness of the substrate. When the incoming strip flatness cannot be guaranteed, it is advisable to include in the line a tension leveler.
Its main function is to improve the strip flatness by using a series of tension bridles and rolls leading to slight plastic deformation, removing any profile flaws.
Globus has an extensive experience with the tension leveling process, applied both to steel and aluminum strips.
Besides the classic coil coating technology, Globus can offer innovative printing solutions. Thanks to significant investments in innovation and R&D, Globus has developed a digital printing process on a continuous strip with a single pass printer.
This process offers the maximum operational flexibility, since it does rely on printing rolls which need to be replaced whenever a different new image is to be printed.
Since the printing process offered by Globus relies on UV-curable inks, our solutions are also environmentally friendly, since no VOC’s are liberated in the ink curing process.
Garage doors, facades, home appliances, and interior decorations, are only some of the possible applications.
Refer to the Digital Printing section to find out more about technical details, layout options, registered brands and industrial applications.
The film lamination consists in the application of a plastic film onto the metal strip, either for decoration purposes (permanent film) or for protecting the coated surface (removable film).
The film laminator for permanent decoration is located after the finish oven, therefore is commonly known as a “hot laminator”.
Glue is applied to the metal strip and then thermally activated in the oven. The plastic film is then pressed against the hot metal strip coming out from the oven. After film application, the strip goes through the quench to cool down.
The hot laminators supplied by Globus that allow to film reel change of the film coil without stopping the process or slowing down the line.
A removable plastic film can be applied to the strip right before winding to protect the coated surface from mechanical damages which may occur during handling and transportation.
The equipment applying the film (commonly known as “cold laminator”) is installed at the Exit end of the line and, usually, applies the film to the top side of the strip.
Also in this case the equipment allows the film coil to be changed without interrupting the process.
Example of a prepainted metal application
Example of a prepainted metal application
Example of a prepainted metal application
Example of a prepainted metal application
Example of a prepainted metal application