Patent ID: 7220316

Claim:
An apparatus for plating a wire materials, comprising: an air cooling device provided over an upper portion of a plate-squeezing portion on a plating bath surface so that the wire materials are disposed vertically with respect to the plating bath via the plate-squeezing portion, said air cooling device comprising an air compressor portion, a lower cooling portion below the air compressor portion, and an upper cooling portion above the air compressor portion, wherein the wire materials passing through the air cooling device are air-cooled in two stages by a main cooling air flowing from an air injection hole of said air compressor portion into the upper cooling portion then flowing out from the upper cooling portion from an exit at an upper end and by a secondary cooling air, being sucked into said main cooling air, flowing from an inlet of the lower cooling portion at the lower end thereof into the lower cooling portion and then being joined to the main cooling air; and a plurality of plates for preventing turbulence flow, which suppress the turbulence of the cooling air provided on opposite portions in the cross-machine direction each beside a portion along a route through which each of the wire materials passes arranged in one column in the machine direction to form a plurality of laminar air flow spaces of the cooling air separated by the plurality of plates for preventing turbulence flow in the machine direction and cross-machine direction, and wherein the air injection hole of the air compressor portion is communicated with each laminar air flow space, whereby the wire materials can be simultaneously allowed to cool within the laminar air flow spaces.