1. Method of reducing the wrinkles formed in heating zones, by radiant tubes, of continuous heat treatment lines for metal strip, such as annealing or galvanizing lines, the said strip passing over transporting andor return rollers in the said furnaces, the said method, which consists in modifying the thermal state of the rollers, wherein said modification is made directly by varying the heating by the said radiant tubes located near the rollers, thereby directly controlling the heat flux emitted by the radiant tubes towards the rollers.
2. Method according to claim 1, wherein each radiant tube is supplied separately and independently with combustion air and with fuel and the flow rate of fuel for each radiant tube is continuously adjusted.
3. Method according to claim 1, wherein the radiant tubes close to the rollers are stopped, in an anticipatory manner, so as to facilitate a strip width transition from the narrow type to the wide type.
4. Method according to claim 1, wherein, in the case of wide strip, the highest possible radiant tube temperature is maintained in those parts of the furnace which are located downstream.
5. Method according to claim 1, wherein, in the case of narrow strip, a low radiant tube temperature is maintained.
6. Method according to claim 1, wherein certain radiant tubes are operated in onoff mode.
7. Method according to claim 1, wherein the heating by the radiant tubes is varied so as to reduce, or even eliminate, the thermal gradient in the furnace between the bottom rollers and the top rollers of the latter.
8. Method according to claim 1, further including programmed management of the strip-heating curves, which is tailored to the strip formats and to the heat cycles, in the steady state or during the transient phases.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A communications driver on a communications card comprising:
a network driver interface; and
a miniport driver coupled to the network driver interface, the miniport driver comprising:
a system interface abstraction layer (SIAL) comprising:
an operating system (OS) interface to process a plurality of messages for a plurality of internal driver entities; and
a message controller coupled to the OS interface to transfer the plurality of messages.
2. The communications driver of claim 1, the SIAL further comprising:
a platform interface coupled to the message controller for providing platform specific information and commands to the message controller.
3. The communications driver of claim 1, wherein the message controller communicates with the OS interface through functions.
4. The communications driver of claim 1, the message controller further comprising:
a plurality of message channels, each message channel for communicating a subset of the plurality of messages to and from a corresponding subset of the plurality of internal devices to a specific external device.
5. The communications system driver of claim 4, wherein the message controller comprises a plurality of installable components corresponding to the plurality of message channels.
6. The communications system driver of claim 5, wherein the plurality of installable components comprise function pointers corresponding to functions in the OS interface.
7. The communications driver of claim 1, the OS interface comprising:
an external interface for communicating with the plurality of external entities.
8. The communications system driver of claim 1, the network driver interface further comprising:
a dynamic messaging library coupled to the SIAL.
9. The communications system driver of claim 1, wherein each message of the plurality of messages comprises a message header portion containing routing information for the message controller and a message information portion containing data related to an action for a target entity to perform.
10. The communications system driver of claim 9, wherein a message header comprises an event variable to indicate a unique event for a corresponding message channel and a message channel identifier variable to indicate the corresponding message channel.
11. A communications card, the communications card comprising: a communications system driver comprising:
a network driver interface;
a miniport driver coupled to the network driver interface; and
a system interface abstraction layer (SIAL) coupled to the network driver interface and the miniport driver, the SIAL comprising:
an operating system (OS) interface for processing a plurality of messages to and from a plurality of entities internal to the OS; and
a message controller coupled to the OS interface for translating the messages and routing the message to and from an entity external to the OS.
12. The communications card of claim 11, the SIAL further comprising:
a platform interface coupled to the message controller for providing platform specific information and commands to the message controller.
13. The communications card of claim 11, wherein the message controller communicates with the OS interface through functions.
14. The communications card of claim 11, the message controller further comprising:
a plurality of message channels, each message channel for communicating a subset of the plurality of messages to and from a corresponding subset of the plurality of internal devices to a specific external device.
15. The communications card of claim 14, wherein a message header comprises an event variable to indicate a unique event for a corresponding message channel and a message channel identifier variable to indicate the corresponding message channel.
16. The communications card of claim 14, wherein the message controller comprises a plurality of installable components corresponding to the plurality of message channels.
17. The communications card of claim 16, wherein the plurality of installable components comprise function pointers corresponding to functions in the OS interface.
18. The communications card of claim 11, the OS interface comprising:
a external interface for communicating with the plurality of external entities.
19. The communications card of claim 11, the communications card further comprising:
a dynamic messaging library coupled to the SIAL.