Patent ID: 7294215

Claim:
A method for cooling a steel plate comprising: forming, at a cooling zone for cooling the steel plate, a water pool with jets of cooling water that are injected to impinge on one another from: (i) one slit nozzle positioned at an upper surface side of the steel plate, and (ii) a plurality of induced laminar flow nozzles positioned at a lower surface side of the steel plate, said induced laminar flow nozzles being arrayed both along a transfer direction of the steel plate and along a direction perpendicular to the transfer direction; passing the steel plate into the water pool at the cooling zone; and when a front portion of the steel plate passes over at least upstream-most ones of the induced laminar flow nozzles, which are located at an entrance side of the cooling zone, reducing a volume of the cooling water that reaches the steel plate from said at least the upstream-most induced laminar flow nozzles; wherein the reduction in the volume of the cooling water is not performed when a rear portion of the steel plate passes over said at least the upstream-most induced laminar flow nozzles.