Slitter

A master coil from the hot strip mill can be up to 2 meters wide, which is far too wide for a single tube. The slitter is a high-precision machine that uncoils the master roll and passes it through a set of top and bottom circular knives. These knives act like industrial shears, slicing the wide strip into several narrower ribbons. The setup of the slitter is a mathematical challenge; the operator must account for the "kerf" (the material lost to the cut) and the "burr" (the slight deformation at the edge). For tube manufacturing, the edges produced by the slitter must be clean and square, as these edges will eventually be melted together to form the longitudinal weld seam of the tube.