Numerical and experimental investigations into strain distribution and metal flow of low carbon steel in cold ring rolling

Abstract

Strain distribution of cold ring rolling has been proven to be inhomogeneous in published literatures. However, divergence emerges from those numerical and experimental results concerning strain levels throughout ring thickness. One reason for this is that most of the results were obtained under different experimental conditions such as die geometry and processing parameters. Thus, to achieve a reliable explanation for the strain distribution of the ring is of great importance. For this task, numerical simulation and experimental procedures of cold ring rolling of low carbon steel are performed in the current work on the condition that the parameter configuration of the two is identical. In doing so, a comparison of simulation with experiment is provided to help explain the strain distribution of the ring. The numerical simulation shows good agreement with the experimental results. A higher level of plastic deformation exists in the outer surface of the ring, which is revealed in both the simulation and the experiment. Furthermore, microstructure observation is introduced to determine the metal flow in cold ring rolling from a new angle of microscale. Aligning at smaller angles with rolling direction, lamellar colonies in the outer surface of the ring exhibit relatively finer morphologies than those in the inner surface, indicating circumferential material flow of a higher level in that region.

Keywords:

• Cold ring rolling
• Finite element simulation
• Microstructure
• Strain distribution

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the support from the Important National Science & Technology Specific Projects Fund (grant no. 2009ZX04014-074).