INTRODUCTION During the last years the most used rolling stands type for long products production have been the housingless stands and, even not less much, the cantilever stands. The more frequent requests of our Customer, involved in lower investments for complete rolling mills or for revamping of existing plants, are: - To reduce the investments for civil works, buildings and cranes. - To reduce the equipment delivery times. - To reduce the investment cost of mill train. - To reduce spare parts. - Equipment without on board plant - Easy maintenance equipment - High performance equipment In other words the rolling mill is primarily interested in lower costs and as well as higher yields! In order to grant these requests and the suggestions of the production and maintenance mangers, PERT has been the first supplier now to develop a new generation of stands called BS Type rolling stands illustrated here below. BS TYPE VERTICAL STAND (ROUGHING STAND 550) BS TYPE HORIZONTAL STAND (ROUGHING STAND 550)   PERT BS TYPE ROLLING STAND MAIN TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS BS Stand is an evolution of the traditional housingless and cantilever stand. This technical evolution will assure a drastic improvement of bearable rolling load, a rapid system for changing the production program and will be a valid alternative solution to the conventional stands. The advantages of this new type of stands can be summarized in the following points: - Monolithic, compact and rigid construction stand body made of fabricated and not cast components. Due to the new design the rolling stands are extremely stiff. Closest tolerances even with varying rolling process. - Use of rings instead of the traditional cast iron rolling rolls. - Ring shafts in heat tungsten NiCrMo steel mounted in multiroll bearings (in intermediate and finishing area). - Radius of shafts neck dimensioned to minimize strain concentrations. - Ring center distance adjustment performable by means of simultaneous opening/closing of both shafts by screwing down gears direct-acting on eccentric sleeves. - Ring center distance will be controlled by encoder and read in the main control pulpit. - The regulation of the rings center distances is made by the hydraulic motor with double worm screw reduction gear in order to assure an absolute precision. - Easy access to the stands to facilitate ring change, removal of cobbles, maintenance, guides regulation. - High axial and radial rigidity. - Improved stand stiffness (see below comparative table)   ADVANTAGES The BS Type rolling stand provide for an operator-friendly arrangement of the rolling line and are specially designed for the flexible production of high quality products. In terms of economic and operation, BS type stands give us the security of the following advantages, in comparison with today conventional stands: - Short change over times, minimum downtimes are ensured for program changes and easy stand replacement. The changing time of a single stand is less than 2.5 minutes. - Reduced operational spare parts and less maintenance due to the fact that horizontal and vertical stand are of the same design. Bearings and even the spindles are protected against water and scale. Exchangeable rings fastened on roll shafts result in low operation costs. - Reduced overall stands dimensions give us single and shallow depth foundations and building dimensions reduction. - Weight stand reduction with consequent less capacity of overhead cranes. - Reduction of erection times, thanks to the absence of plant on board. - Use of rolling rings requires smaller machine tools for grooves machining and little rings storage room. - Installing high strength rings, we obtain a longer groove life with consequent improved plant utilization factor. - BS type stand can be used in different areas of train and their reduced dimensions make the stands suitable for the installation where space is limited or for revamping of existing mills. - In the following figures the dimensional differences between the BS type and the traditional stands are clear. CONCLUSIONS The new type of BS stands has been introduced on the market on May 2010, during the International Exhibition AISTECH 2010, in Pittsburgh. This had aroused grate interest of the operator in the sector and had been confirmed by an immediate contract for the revamping of a bar rolling mill in Ethiopia. Thanks to the installation of the new BS Type stands and new 2xFinishng Block, the plant will remarkably increase the production and the quality of the final product. The shutdown of the will be 2 months. After the revamping, the rolling mill will become the most modern rolling mill of Africa. Detailed information on all BS type technology is available on request (info@pertengineering.com, www.pertengineering.com ). Authors : Massimiliano Zuccato Long Product Division Manager, Matteo Tomba Technical Department Manager