Purpose and operation philosophy:

• The purpose of the FOEN^® air knife wiping equipment is to adjust the accurate zinc coating weight on a metal strip by blowing air or nitrogen to the strip with a certain pressure.

• The equipment comprises a guiding roll system in the molten metal pot which assures the fixed vertical pass-up line of the strip between the air knives which are located above.

• FOEN^® uses a 3-rolls-system to guide the strip. During operation, the correcting roll can be moved by remote control to and from the strip to flatten the crossbow in the strip enabling to have a flat strip in the wiping area of the air knives.

• The FOEN^® air knives blow a controlled air pressure through a slit gap along the whole strip width to adjust the amount of molten zinc on the strip by wiping off its excess. The zinc layer weight is mainly depending on the air knives height, pressure and distance to the strip. Therefore, the FOEN^® equipment adjusts these parameters to control the molten metal layer.

Coating thickness

30 – 300 gr/m²/side

Line speeds

30 – 213 m/min (98 – 700 fpm)

Strip thickness

0.20 – 6.45 mm (0.008 – 0.25 inches)

Strip width 

50 – 2,083 mm (2 – 82 inches)

Commercial  quality  

Drawing quality

Very light coating at high speeds