Patent ID: 7645417

Claim:
Cooling device for a quenching operation during the continuous annealing treatment of a flat product in the form of a metal strip ( 2 ), preferably a steel strip, said device: being located in an essentially vertical, ascending or descending path; comprising an overflow weir ( 4 ) in which a series of tubes ( 1 ) are completely immersed and stacked more or less vertically and symmetrically along each side of the strip ( 2 ) and which each eject onto the strip a cooling fluid in the form of essentially horizontal turbulent jets through a slit or a series of holes; being provided in its lower part with a sealing means ( 3 ); characterised in that any two successive tubes ( 1 ) located on a same side of the strip ( 2 ) are separated by a gap (B) serving as an evacuation passage of the cooling fluid, said gap being identical for all tubes ( 1 ), chosen at a given value of specific flow rate of the cooling fluid, expressed in cubic meters per hour and per square meter of a surface of the strip so as to minimise the loss of flow in the evacuation passages corresponding to said gap (B).