Hot strip mill slab feed table - GIF

[Frank S]

Why is it necessary for this mechanism to be so incredibly heavy duty? It doesn’t look like those rollers would have enough purchase on whatever they were feeding to need such heavy duty drive components.

To answer your question this is a new install evident by the tape still on the rollers the sheet of material shown being transported is a test and adjusting slab.
the rollers must be synchronisticly adjusted for contact and alignment. It is being run at a very slow speed for observation and videoing purposes. After they are satisfied with the alignment of the bottom half a mating cassette will be added above this, however the top cassette will have an infinite amount of adjustments to turn a hot billet into the thickness of plate desired. The red hot sheets will be rolled through this machine at near ballistic speeds 100's to 1000's of meters per minute so yes the mechanism needs to be very robust