15. - 17. 5.

2013, Brno, Czech Republic, EU

WIRE SURFACE ROUGHNESS AS POSSIBLE CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION OF DIES WEAR

a a b
Viktor TITTEL , Miroslav ZELENAY , Ľuboš KUDELÁS
a
STU Faculty of Materials Science and Technology in Trnava, J. Bottu 25, 917 24 Trnava, Slovak Republic,
viktor.tittel@stuba.sk, miroslav.zelenay@gmail.com
b
TU Košice, Faculty BERG, Park Komenského 14, 040 01 Košice, Slovak Republic, lubos.kudelas@tuke.sk

Abstract
The experiments were a response of deficient wire quality (diameter and ovality) and high standard dies
consumption. The experiments were carried out direct in praxis at the steel wires drawing of  2.10 mm with
a carbon content 0.85  0.87 % C and with using borax as surface treatment of wire rod. The hydrodynamic
lubrication was used at the wire drawing on straight line continuous drawing machine by reason of increase
of production effectiveness, wire quality improvement and defective products decrease. The geometric
parameters of drawn wire were found: keeping of diameter tolerance and ovality tolerance and also surface
roughness. At the same time consumption dies and dies wear were followed during which time the dies wear
was expressed by dependency of surface roughness of drawing wire on the drawing duration. This prediction
was confirmed by the repeated experiment. Moreover it was found out that dies consumption was decreased
4.5 times against consumption of standard dies when hydrodynamic lubrication was used. At the same time
the specified values of diameter tolerance, ovality and improved wire surface quality were achieved.
Key words:

surface roughness, dies consumption, hydrodynamic lubrication, straight-line drawing machine, wire drawing

1. Introduction

There are many factors in drawing process through dies which affect mechanical properties of drawn wire,
drawing force, die lifetime and efficiency of production process. One of possibility of drawing force
decreasing is friction and decreasing of frictional forces, which can sometimes achieve values up to 50 %
from total drawing force. Principle of wire in a drawing die cone is demonstrated in a Fig. 1. [1, 2] The
drawing force „F“ evokes in a contact area a pressure „q“ between die and wire. The pressure conjunction
„q“, friction factor „“ and contact area is the frictional force. The fundamental condition for decreasing of
drawing force is decreasing of friction factor „“ between wire surface and die. The ideal frictional conditions
occur at the liquid friction when die and wire are each other separated by coherent coat of lubricant.

Fig. 1 Pressure and friction on interface of wire-die [1, 4]

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This pressure must be created by itself lubricant that the coat was not destroyed and it resisted high
pressure which rises at the forming process. This one can be created by forced or natural lubricant inlet.The
contribution deals with the natural lubricant inlet (the lubricant is pulled into the die by the wire). There are
many versions of pressure systems in the world which consists of pressure pipe and drawing die or pressure
die and drawing die eventually special constructed casings which just put in pressure and drawing nibs.
Multistage dies are also known which have more pressure rooms as one [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. In our case at the
experiment it was used pressure system according to Fig. 2. It is concerned the pressure system which is
consisted of two dies from which one is drawing (working) die position 2 and 5 a second one is pressure die
position 3 and 4 (main function of pressure die is that the lubricant could be pulled into the pressure room
and partially this one close that the lubricant could not come back). It was used standard drawing die as
pressure die. Both dies are in the casing fixed. The main principle of high pressure creating is continuously
lubricant pulling into the room between two dies (pressure and drawing – position 2 and 3, Fig. 2). Narrow
gap between incoming wire and socket in the pressure die does not allow the lubricant come back from this
room, eventually does not limit back motion of lubricant.

Fig. 2 Scheme of pressure system – pressure and drawing die [2, 7]

1 – cooper washer, 2 – drawing (working) die, 3 – pressure die, 4, 5 – casing,
6, 7 – connection matrix, 8 – sealing, 9 – die holder
It is very important for each pressure system, some conditions were satisfied:
1. exhaustive sealing-in between pressure and drawing part,
2. choice of such the drawing conditions (drawing speed, reduction and cooling that did not occur to
degradation (sintering) of lubricant,
3. pressure part in output must be slightly more than input part of drawing part.

2. Experimental goal

Target of experiment was to verify direct in the production:

1. consumption and dies lifetime at the system which was consisted of pressure and drawing die and to
compare against dies consumption and lifetime at the standard drawing dies,
2. at the selected wire compare mechanical properties of drawn wires which were drawn on pressure
and drawing dies,
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3. at the drawn wires follow up besides dies consumption and dies lifetime also sequential change of
surface roughness,
4. on the basis of drawn wire roughness to define criteria for life time of dies.

3. Experiment description
Our experiment was focused on a verifying of dies consumption and dies lifetime at the drawing of high
carbon wires of 2.10 mm with a carbon content C 0.85 %. One of main requirements for the drawing of such
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wire was a drawing speed, defined by v = 8 m·s at the keeping of size and surface quality. The drawing
process was performed on straight-line drawing machine which constructionally allowed the drawing at this
drawing speed and with such carbon content. At the beginning the drawing of this wire type was executed in
single drawing dies directly from a wire rod with using of eight passes. The trouble with quality began to
-1
occur at the drawing with using of required speed 8 m·s . Each second or the third spool with a drawn wire
had the badges of enhanced ovality, excessive diameter tolerance, shiny surface eventually damaged wire
surface (see Fig. 3) which caused trouble at the following patenting in a lead bath. This effect can occur in
following causes if:
- too high drawing speed is and wire surface do not pull into working part of die sufficient lubricant
quantity and then do not separated each other wire surface from die surface,
- the die cooling or capstan cooling is not sufficient and then wire surface temperature is such high
that it occurs gradually lubricant sintering in the working part of die,
- too high reduction is.
-1
During drawing process the operators had too often to decrease drawing speed on 6 m·s that they could
achieve a required size accuracy and untimely had not to change the worn dies. Therefore besides quality
issues the there was also downtime problem in consequence of often changes of worn dies and also loss of
production capacity. On the basis of these facts it appeared the requirement to improve the drawing process
of above-mentioned wire type, to decrease downtime and dies consumption and also to improve quality of
drawn wire and total dies lifetime. One of the possible ways within improvement of drawing process was
experimental to prove a pressure dies at the drawing of this wire type and so to fulfil the above-mentioned
goals. The drawing process was being curried out globally on eight passes with total reduction 85.42 %. The
average reduction from all passes was 21.39 %.
At the experiments we had to make certain compromise. The pressure dies were not used for all passes.
Đặt tại ví trị
đầu và 2 vị Main reason was we did not keep at disposition the fastening casings for pressure dies. We kept at
trí cuối
disposition only three fixing casings of pressure dies for this experiment. A decision on pressure dies location
fell for first pass, pass before last one and last pass. Reason was that the first pass can be more benefical
for sufficient lubricant coat on wire surface a last two dies can influence drawn wire quality too, with respect
to size, geometric form and surface aspect. The others dies, which were used in machine and were located
in the middle of die set, were only standard drawing dies. It was chosen so-called soft mode for pressure
dies which means that a play between wire surface and surface of pressure die was in range from 0.575 to
0.25 mm.

4. Results and experiment evaluation

It was observed before this experiment the surface change will occur also if the change of wire diameter
comes. The wire surface was begun to follow on the optical microscope and to compare by these wires
which had acceptable (dark surface) surface quality and diameter which did not extend any specified
tolerances and had no signs of ovality against wires which had size, geometric properties (ovality) but also
not acceptable surface aspect. We found at the microscopic observation that the wires with so-called shiny
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surface (see Fig. 3) which were separated in the production had considerably grooved surface against wires
with acceptable diameter, geometric and surface properties.

Fig. 3 Wire of ø 2.10 mm, 0.85 wt. % C with shiny surface (with grooves and with worn surface)
At this experiment we began to follow besides dies consumption and lifetime also surface change of wire
(wire surface roughness change – Ra) depending on count of drawn spools at the pressure lubrication. The
samples from drawn spools (with serial number 1, 9 and 25) were taken for roughness measurement on
which was curried out mentioned measurement (see Fig. 4)

Fig. 4 Surface part of drawn wire with diameter of ø 2.10 mm [3]

(a – from spool No. 1; b – from spool No. 9; c – from spool No. 25) Magnification 1000 times
Within roughness measurement the wire surface from each spool was divided in some parts so that covered
a considerable surface part (about 50  75 %). The value Ra was evaluated at the observation [8]. For
measurement of values Ra was used besides optical equipments (microscope and camera) also special
software for definition and evaluation of roughness value Ra. The wire surface was measured at the
magnification 1000 times. The average values of roughness from all three spools can be seen in next table.
Table 1 Course of roughness from evaluated samples

Spool No. 1 Spool No. 9 Spool No. 25

Surface roughness of wire Ra [µm]
0.67 0.29 0.42
During this experiment twenty seven spools with good quality and with total weight 22000 kg were drawn at
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the drawing speed 8 m·s . It can be seen also from Table 1 where surface roughness and surface aspect
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were still very good after twenty fifth of spool when diameter tolerance and ovality were held. The troubles
occurred at the drawing of twenty eighth (last) spools when the valve was not open at the checking of die
cooling what it was a main reason that the last spool was produced with exceeded diameter. The event
caused shiny (wearing) wire surface and overrun wire diameter tolerance. The drawn wire had to be
separated from good production and the damaged dies had to be changed and replaced for new dies. As
can be seen from the Table 1 the roughness value of wire surface was worse in the beginning than at the
drawing of ninth and also the twenty fifth of spool. It can be explained so that the new dies were not still
sufficiently furbished.
The results from measured roughness were consequently analyzed. On the basis of serial number of drawn
spool the time flow was created and the measured roughness from each spool was assigned to the time
flow. The obtained points were recovered by a curve, which can be described through polynomial of fourth
degree. The final result is the obtained dependency of the roughness on the time of drawing. On the basis of
this dependency can be predicted dies wear for the existing conditionals of drawing. The roughness value of
1 µm was defined as upper tolerance limit and the moment found, which drawn spool for these conditionals
of drawing achieves by we the defined level of tolerance.

Fig. 5 Dependency of wire roughness on the drawing time

It was decided this experiment once again to repeat in next order with same quantity immediately and to
verify our prediction of dies wear.
We used the same strain-line drawing machine and new pressure dies were built in the machine exactly
same as in previous case and entire experiment was repeated at the order with same volume. At this
experiment no problems occurred and twenty eighth of quality spools were drawn with total weight cca
23000 kg. Within the experiment it was practically processed 46 tons of wire. Before realization of this
experiment 2 – 3 dies were changed (most often last one) it means after every second spool (2 x 815 kg). It Mà thường
follows that the consumption of standard dies at the drawing of this wire type was 122.7 pcs per 100 tons of
production. During our experiment it was changed last 3 dies (3 pressure dies + 3 drawing dies) a 22 tons
wire was produced. It follows the dies consumption was 27.2 pcs per 100 tons of production included
pressure and drawing dies what is 4.5 times less. In the matter of dies lifetime to their rejection so before the
dies lifetime for previous drawing conditions was about 2.08 hours of the uninterrupted drawing. At the
experiment with pressure dies the dies lifetime to their rejection was achieved 28 hours of uninterrupted
drawing, what it is 14 times more than at the using of drawing dies.
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5. Conclusion

In the contribution the experiment results are evaluated which was focused on the following and comparison
pressure and drawing dies. Before the experiment it was predicted that if the pressure dies are used the
drawing process will be improved, dies consumption will be lower and downtimes will be eliminated in
consequence of sporadic replacement of worn dies. It was predicted through mathematical analyses that
using of pressure dies can be drawn the whole volume of order without dies change. Our prediction
sustained fully. At the experiment the measurement method for surface roughness was used and wire
surface was appreciated on the basis of measurable values and not only on the basis of subjective
appreciation. The some published data from literature was confirmed e.g. the tensile strength will be lower by
the using of pressure dies and plastic properties of drawn material will be higher again wires which was
drawn with using of standard dies. In general can be said that dies consumption is decreased by using of
pressure dies and the lifetime of dies is increased against standard dies. At our experiment the dies
consumption decreased more than 4.5 times and dies lifetime increased more than 14 times. On the basis of
achieved results we could real predict that if the pressure dies are used on all passes and dies cooling and
capstans cooling are ensured then this change in drawing process can bring considerable savings and to
support the production effectiveness.
We try to demonstrate merits of pressure dies using and pressure lubrication at the high carbon wire
production through our contribution which was exclusively produced for special rope applications dedicated
for mining industry [9,10].

Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Scientific Grant Agency of The Ministry of Education of the Slovak
republic No. VEGA 1/0922/12.

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