Sendzimir, Tadeusz

SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy

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fl. twentieth century USA

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American metallurgist, inventor of the planetary rolling mill.

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The principle of the Sendzimir or planetary rolling mill was first conceived by an English engineer named Picken, but that did not lead to practical development. The principle was taken up independently in the USA by Sendzimir, who put forward his own ideas in 1948 and obtained a patent the same year. By 1952 he had reached agreements with Picken and other workers to license the construction of a plant completely under the control of Sendzimir and his associates. This type of rolling mill was developed primarily for the cold rolling of steel strip. Cold rolling requires higher pressures to be exerted by the rolls, which therefore must be harder than in hot rolling. In the Sendzimir mill the two hard work rolls are backed up by a cluster of heavier rolls of various sizes to prevent distortion of the work rolls. One advantage of this arrangement is that the work rolls can be quite small, so that they can be removed by hand when they need replacement. The Sendzimir mill is in wide use, particularly for rolling stainless steel. The first such mill was installed at Peugeot's in France in 1950, with two sets of planetary rolls for the hot rolling of 16 in. (41 cm) wide steel strip. The second was in the USA in 1951, and a third, larger one followed at Ductile Steels Ltd at Willenhall, Wolverhampton, England, in 1953.

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Further Reading

E.C.Larke, 1957, The Rolling of Strip, Sheet and Plate, London: Chapman \& Hall, pp. 53 ff. (gives some details of planetary mills, with a little historical background).

LRD