Surface Defect Generation and

E. Mancini1
e-mail: edoardo.mancini@uniroma1.it
M. Sasso
e-mail: m.sasso@univpm.it
D. Amodio
e-mail: d.amodio@univpm.it
Dipartimento di Meccanica,
Università Politecnica delle Marche,
via Brecce Bianche,
I-60131 Ancona, Italy
R. Ferretti
e-mail: r.ferretti@c-s-m.it
F. Sanfilippo
Centro Sviluppo Materiali,
viale B. Brin,
218-05100 Terni, Italy
e-mail: f.sanfilippo@c-s-m.it
Recovery in Cold Rolling of
Stainless Steel Strips
Previously, researchers investigated the mechanism of surface defect evolution in rolling.
It was highlighted how the lubricant plays an essential role for the final strip surface
quality. In some cases the lubricant can be entrapped in pits or in other defects where
hydrostatic pressure tends to prevent its elimination; however, when some favorable
conditions are satisfied, the lubricant can be drawn out by hydrodynamic actions and
defects can be recovered. This mechanism has been described as microplastohydrody-
namic lubrication (MPHL) and recent studies report a suitable parameter (the ratio of
the oil drawn out from the pit to the initial pit volume) as MPHL characterization
coefficient. The present paper deals with the recovery of isolated surface defects in the
Sendzimir rolling process of AISI 304 stainless steel; the analyses have been conducted
on two rolling conditions, which although quite similar, regularly showed opposite capa-
bility of defect recovery, moreover, with a trend that is in contrast with the predictions
made by standard MPHL. Two effects, which are usually ignored in literature modeling,
have been considered in this work: The former is the back-tension, which has relevant
outcome on the contact pressure and the latter is the position of the neutral point, which
cannot be assumed to lie at the end of the roll bite. The analytical treatment was sup-
ported by FEM simulations, which permitted to put realistic data into the MPHL equa-
tions, thus, to explain the experimental behavior. The analysis was then validated with
two further rolling schedules that seem to confirm the proposed approach.
关DOI: 10.1115/1.4002218兴

Keywords: cold rolling, pit, finite element modeling, microplastohydrodynamic

lubrication

1 Introduction
Stainless steels are widely used for their corrosion resistance
and surface aspect in all those applications where a high surface
quality is required 共covering panels, pots and pans, etc.兲. Surface
defects due to rolling may therefore represent a significant cost
related to high scrap rates; for this reason, knowledge of basic
mechanisms of surface defect generation would lead to optimum
facility set-up and higher surface quality.
In previous studies 关1–4兴 whose aim was to examine defect
evolution mechanism during cold rolling, it was pointed out that
in some conditions, the lubricant, which is useful to reduce fric-
tion and wear of contact pieces, may prevent surface roughness
reduction 共which is one of the goals of the rolling process兲 and
also defect recovery on the sheet. Regarding the latter, the lubri-
cant may even facilitate the development of defects on the sheet.
During the rolling process, in order to have a high surface fin-
ishing and a low friction, it is preferable to have a mixed/
boundary lubrication regime in the roll bite: It means that a certain
portion of pressure load is carried by asperity interaction on peaks
and the rest of the load is carried by pressurized lubricant located
in valleys; in this way, the film thickness of the lubricant is small
enough to allow asperity flattening. Rolling in this regime and in
conjunction with additional conditions, as specified by Lo 关5兴,
makes it possible to trap part of the oil in the microcavities; being
the oil nearly incompressible, it acts like an inclusion, avoiding
microcavities elimination. These phenomena take place in a small
1
Corresponding author. Present address: Università di Roma “La Sapienza,” via
Eudossiana 18, 00184 Roma, Italy.
Contributed by the Tribology Division of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF
TRIBOLOGY. Manuscript received February 5, 2010; final manuscript received July 16,
2010; published online December 2, 2010. Assoc. Editor: George K. Nikas.
area at the roll bite entry where the asperities are rapidly flattened
关6兴. An example of defected surface is given in Fig. 1 where the
principal surface defects named “pit” are highlighted with circles.
On the other hand, when sliding between the roll and sheet
occurs, the oil may be drawn out from the microcavities due to
hydrodynamic actions; this mechanism was described by Lo and
Wilson 关7兴 as microplastohydrodynamic lubrication 共MPHL兲 and
was schematically illustrated in Fig. 2. By this mechanism, some
of the lubricant trapped in the pit can leave it by forming a thin
“microhydrodynamic” film on the asperities, allowing the defect
to be recovered.
In previous studies 关1,8,9兴, strip-drawing tests with artificial
indents were performed to confirm the activation of microplasto-
hydrodynamic lubrication; besides, Ahmed and Sutcliffe 关1兴 com-
pared the results from strip-drawing and cold rolling tests, show-
ing the analogy between the two processes in terms of variation of
pit area and roughness with overall reduction. However, in the
above mentioned works, the analytical approach did not account
for the position of the neutral point N 共the point where no sliding
occurs between rolls and strip兲, which was assumed to lie at the
exit of the roll bite.
In the present paper, we refer to the first step of Sendzimir mill
where AISI 304 stainless steel strips are cold rolled at relatively
high speed and with a thickness reduction in the order of 25%; the
first rolling step represents the most important with regards to the
generation or recovery of defects because the material coming
from hot rolling annealing pickling processes have a high rough-
ness Ra ⬇ 3.50 ␮m that may encourage defect formation. Ahmed
and Sutcliffe’s 关1兴 approach in conjunction with finite element
method 共FEM兲 was adopted in order to compute ⌳m, a parameter
they defined as indicator of MPHL effectiveness for pit elimina-
tion. In the FEM simulations, the neutral point, the material be-
havior, as well as the front and back tensions have been accounted

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 Fig. 1 Surface defects on the sheet after the rolling process
for; this permitted to calculate reliable distributions for the sliding
speed and the contact pressure along the roll bite, which have
strong influence on oil film thickness and, consequently, on the
possibility to reduce pitting.
2 Theoretical Background
In this section, a brief review of the theory used in the present
paper is reported.
2.1 MPHL Theory. Lo and Wilson 关7兴, by using the hydro-
dynamic lubrication theory 关10,11兴, defined a theoretical model of
MPHL, showing that pit elimination depends on pit geometry and
hydrodynamic actions. Moreover, according to this model, it is
possible to calculate the microfilm thickness of the lubricant at the
asperities edge.
Here, several assumptions made in Lo and Wilson 关7兴 to sim-
plify the analysis are summarized; for each of them, the main
concerns about their validity in the present application are also
reported as the following.
1. The tool is rigid 共in Sendzimir’s mill, the work rolls are
small and are often made of high steel strength alloy with W,
Mo, and V, so the flattening is negligible兲 and smooth 共con-
sidering the composite roughness 关12兴, the real contact may
be considered to occur between a rough surface and a
smooth one 关13兴兲.
2. The deformation is in plane strain regime 共the strip is wide,
greater than 1200 mm, and thin, less than 6 mm兲 and is
homogeneous 共with thin strips, the sections normal to rolling
direction are effectively almost plane兲.
3. The flow is one-dimensional and the pressure is constant
across the film 共the film thickness is very small and the
movements of both tool and strip are in one direction兲.
4. During deformation, the asperity slope doesn’t change: it
means that considering an ideal asperity of triangular shape,
the pit depth gradually reduces maintaining a constant aspect
ratio 共this is not totally true but is an acceptable simplifica-
tion 关7兴兲.
5. The lubricant film thickness drawn into interface is small
compared with the depth of the asperity valley 共boundary
regime hypothesis兲.
Fig. 2 Scheme of MPHL mechanism
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Fig. 3 Schematic representation of microplastohydrodynamic
lubrication
6. The lubricant will behave as a Newtonian liquid 共the viscos-
ity is independent from shear stress and is given from Barus
law, as reported in Saniei and Salimi 关6兴兲.
7. The fluid is incompressible 共it is like an inclusion and it
generates the defect兲.
8. The fluid is isothermal 共the temperature increase is not
enough to modify the oil viscosity兲.
The mechanism of microplastohydrodynamic lubrication is il-
lustrated in Fig. 3.
Before sliding occurs, the interfacial pressure is uniformly dis-
tributed, as shown in Fig. 3共a兲. When the deformation occurs in
conjunction with sliding 共Fig. 3共b兲兲, a thin lubricant film is drawn
into the contact area between the tool 共roll兲 and the workpiece
共strip兲; due to the “wedge action,” the pressure 共pa兲 at the pit edge
rises above the mean value 共p̄兲 and the lubricant acquires hydro-
dynamic lift, deforms the top of the asperity, and generates a
hydrodynamic microfilm 共thickness h1兲. In this way, the lubricant
can leave the microcavity, the pressure 共pv兲 in the valley decreases
below the mean value, and the pit can be stretched.
The pressure variation is obtained by one-dimensional Rey-
nolds equation
dQ h − hⴱ
= 12␩0␣ū 3 共1兲
dx h
where Q = 1 − e−␣p is the reduced pressure, ␩0 is the fluid viscosity
at ambient pressure, ␣ is the viscosity-pressure coefficient, ū is the
Transactions of the ASME
 Table 1 Rolling schedules

Initial Roll Roll Back Front Forward

Rolling Width thickness diameter speed Reduction tension tension slip
schedules 共mm兲 共mm兲 共mm兲 共m/s兲 共%兲 共MPa兲 共MPa兲 共%兲

1 defected 26.40 66.4 214.0 4.3

1270 3 85 3.6
2 recovered 24.40 39.4 208.3 5.2

mean oil velocity at the edge of the pit, h is the lubricant film Oilout
thickness, and hⴱ is the constant equal to the lubricant film thick- ⌳m = 共7兲
Pitvolume
ness where the pressure gradient is zero.
Considering that the pit slope is assumed constant 共dh / dx = It was assumed that pits are valleys running transversally to the
−␪兲, Eq. 共1兲 becomes rolling direction, so that the volume of oil drawn out from the pit
is approximately equal to
dQ 12␩0␣ū h − hⴱ
=− 共2兲 h1 · ⌬l
dh ␪ h3 Oilout = 共8兲
2
By integrating this equation and assuming that 共a兲 the gradient is
where h1 is the microfilm thickness at the edge of the pit, ⌬l is the
zero at the pit edge 共hⴱ = h1兲, 共b兲 in the middle of the pit the
sliding distance 共almost equal to contact arc length兲, and the factor
pressure is equal to the pressure in the valley pv, and 共c兲 the of two arises because the mean speed of the film is assumed to be
pressure at the edge is equal to pa, we obtain half of the sliding speed 共⌬u兲.

e −␣ pv − e −␣ pa =
6␩0␣ū
␪h1
冉 冊
1−
h1
␦
2
共3兲
The film thickness h1 along the bite is then estimated by rela-
tion 共4兲 as

From Eq. 共3兲 it is possible by remembering the assumption ␦ 6␩0␣⌬u

h1 = −␣共␴0/2兲 −␣共3␴0/2兲 共9兲
Ⰷ h1 to determine the lubricant film thickness h1 when the pres- ␪共e −e 兲
sures pv and pa are known. where the lubricant pressures in the valley and on the asperity top
6␩0␣ū are given by ␴0 / 2 and 3␴0 / 2, respectively, and it is assumed that
h1 = 共4兲 the entraining oil velocity ū is equal to the sliding speed ⌬u be-
␪共e−␣pv − e−␣pa兲 tween the roll and strip, given by
2.2 Parameters ⌳in and ⌳m . Different lubrication regimes
are possible in the roll bite: According to Wilson 关12兴, the current ⌬u = 1 − 冉 冊 z2
z
ur 共10兲
lubrication regime at the inlet of the roll bite can be estimated by
the parameter ⌳in, which is the ratio between the lubricant film where z is the generic strip thickness in the roll bite and ur is the
thickness and the composite surface roughness roll speed.
The initial pit volume per unit width of strip is approximately
h equal to
⌳in = 共5兲
Rq ␦2
Vpit ⬵ 共11兲
Rq is computed by Rq = 冑 R2q1 + R2q2
where Rq1 and Rq2 represent the 2␪
RMS roughness of tool and workpiece respectively; in this way, it where ␦ is the pit depth and tan ␪ ⬵ ␪. Thus
is possible to consider the real contact condition to behave as an

冕 冕
L L
equivalent rough-smooth contact. ␪ 6 ␩ 0␣· ⌬u
The ratio ⌳in is used to check if the lubricant is able to keep the ⌳m = h dl = −␣共␴0/2兲 dl 共12兲
0
␦2 1 0
␦ 共e
2
− e−␣共3␴0/2兲兲
surfaces separated, hence, to avoid strip asperity flattening.
⌳in Ⰶ 1 means that the inlet effects are negligible, the lubricant According to Sutcliffe, the defect cannot be recovered when ⌳m
film is small 共boundary lubrication regime 关14兴兲, and the asperity Ⰶ 1, meaning that the effect of MPHL is insignificant. On the
can be flattened. contrary, ⌳m ⬎ 1 means that a considerable quantity of oil is ex-
The amount of oil drawn into the roll bite for the entraining pelled from the cavities and the defects can be avoided; naturally,
action is estimated by the Wilson and Walowit 关15兴 relation values of ⌳m that are close to unity represent dubious cases where
1 6 ␩ 0␣ the theory, because of many assumptions, cannot provide definite
h= · · ū 共6兲 predictions.
⌽0 关1 − e−␣共␴0−␴t兲兴
where ū = 共ur + us兲 / 2 is the average of tool and workpiece speeds 3 Experimental Application
in the inlet zone, ⌽0 is the inlet angle between the strip and roll 共it Two different rolling conditions have been implemented in a
is assumed that tan ⌽0 ⬇ ⌽0兲, ␴0 is the von Mises yield stress in Sendzimir mill that brought two opposite results: in the first situ-
plane strain condition of the strip, ␴t is the back-tension, ␩0 is the ation, the strip presented defects after the rolling process while in
lubricant viscosity to a fixed temperature and to an ambient pres- the second one, characterized by a different position of the neutral
sure, and ␣ is the viscosity-pressure coefficient of the Barus equa- point N 共shifted backward兲, the defect has been fully recovered.
tion 共␩ = ␩0 · e␣p兲. This suggested reading N position like an interesting goal for
In order to characterize the lubrication in the MPHL regime, defect recovering.
Ahmed and Sutcliffe 关1兴, Le and Sutcliffe 关8兴, and Sutcliffe et al. The main parameters for the two rolling schedules are reported
关9兴, starting from the Lo and Wilson 关7兴 model, also defined a in Table 1.
parameter ⌳m as the ratio of the oil drawn out from the pit to the The same rolling conditions have been successively reproduced
initial pit volume in finite element simulations and the MPHL parameters ⌳in and

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 Table 2 Lubricant properties been performed; to this aim, fretting wear tests have been carried
out with a tribometer 共Optimol SRV兲. With a specific set-up of
Variable Value this machine, it was possible to realize linear contacts
共cylinder-plane兲.
␩0 at 40° C 共Pa s兲 0.011
It has been observed that the mean friction coefficient was
␯
共cSt兲 共1 cSt= 10−6 m2 / s兲 13
about 0.05 with low scatter, stable with load from 300 N to 500 N,
␣
共1/Pa兲 2.017⫻ 10−8
␳共kg/ m3兲 an average density at 40– 60° C 846 and with temperature up to 80° C; at higher temperatures the fric-
tion increased to high values and the test had to be stopped.
In the case under study, the cold rolling temperature is below
80° C 共between 40° C and 60° C兲, so the viscosity variation with
temperature can be neglected.
Table 3 Roughness „roll… The viscosity variation with pressure instead is given by the
Barus and Roelands equations as reported in Saniei and Salimi 关6兴
Mean values
and Tieu et al. 关16兴; the lubricant rheological properties and den-
Ra 共␮m兲 0.252 sities are shown in Table 2.
Rq 共␮m兲 0.320 The viscosity-pressure coefficient ␣ is a quantity that can vary
Rv 共␮m兲 1.410 by 15% or more between batches of lubricants from the same
supplier; in this work, it has been calculated 共for only one batch兲
by a comparison between the Barus equation 共13兲 and the Roe-
lands equation 共14兲 at the working pressure
⌳m have been evaluated. Both parameters ⌳in and ⌳m depend on ␩共t,p兲 = ␩0共t,p兲 · e␣p 共13兲
many variables; this made it necessary to characterize the lubri-
cant, the roughness of strip and rolls, and the material behavior. ␩共t,p兲 = ␩0共t,p兲 · e 关共ln␩0+9.67兲·共共1 + 共 p/pr兲兲Z−1兲兴
共14兲
3.1 Lubricant Characterization. The lubricant characteriza- Equating Eqs. 共13兲 and 共14兲 leads to

冉 冊冋 冉冉 冊 冊册
tion was necessary to set-up the finite element models and to Z
calculate the ⌳in and ⌳m parameters. It is known that the lubricant 1 p0
␣= · 共ln␩0 + 9.67兲 · 1+ −1 共15兲
viscosity is a decreasing function of temperature, and, generally, it p0 pr
increases with the rising of pressure.
In this way, it is sufficient to know or to measure ␩0, Z, and pr
To verify the capacity of the lubricant to reduce the friction
where ␩0 is the reference dynamic viscosity 共Pa s兲, Z = 0.881
coefficient, several tribological tests at different temperatures have
− 1.01· log共1 + T / 135兲, T is the same temperature at which ␩0 has
been evaluated 共40° C兲, p0 is the reference pressure 共here, as-
Table 4 Roughness „strip… sumed to be 6000 bars, which is the average contact pressure in
the roll bite兲, and pr is the Roelands constant 共Pa兲.
Mean values
3.2 Roughness Measurement on Strip and Rolls. The pa-
Before rolling After rolling rameter ⌳in depends directly on roll and strip roughness 共Eq. 共5兲兲
while ⌳m depends indirectly on strip roughness by pit shape 共Eq.
Ra 共␮m兲 3.52 0.261 共12兲兲. They have been evaluated by means of roughness measure-
Rq 共␮m兲 4.42 0.335 ments; the results reported in Tables 3 and 4 are an average of
Rv 共␮m兲 13.8 1.310 eight measurements on the longitudinal direction on rolls and
⌬q 共deg兲 13.6 1.700 strip, respectively. In Table 4, the roughness reduction in the strip
Rsk ⫺0.20 ⫺1.90 due to the rolling process is also evident. The sheet surface aspect

Fig. 4 Strip surface before cold rolling: „a… surface aspect and „b… surface profile

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 Fig. 5 Strip surface after a “correct” cold rolling: „a… surface aspect and „b… surface profile

and the sheet profiles before rolling are given in Figs. 4共a兲 and
4共b兲, respectively. The surface aspect and profile after rolling are
reported in Figs. 5共a兲 and 5共b兲.
The strip roughness values Rv and ⌬q underlined in Table 4
have been used to calculate the pit volume necessary for the esti-
mation of parameter ⌳m.
3.3 Material Characterization. The material used in the roll-
ing experiments is AISI 304 stainless steel. Tensile tests on flat
samples 共ISO 50兲 and compression tests on cylindrical samples
共obtained from sheet in thickness direction before rolling兲 have
been performed with a Zwick® Z050 electromechanical machine.
The experimental results are reported in Fig. 6; there is a substan-
tial superposition between the curves, meaning that the material
has an isotropic plasticity behavior. Furthermore, it can be noted
that the constitutive behavior of AISI 304 stainless steel presents a
relevant strain hardening, so that important variations in the yield
and contact stresses occur along the rolling distance and they must
be included in the analyses.
4 FEM Based Approach to the Analysis of Surface De-
fect Elimination
By Ahmed and Sutcliffe 关1兴, Sutcliffe and Georgiades 关3兴, Le
and Sutcliffe 关8兴, and Sutcliffe et al. 关9兴 approaches in conjunction
with FEM modeling, it is possible to calculate the ⌳m value in the
roll bite and to identify the conditions that could lead to defect
recovery; in addition, by using the ratio ⌳in defined in Wilson
关12兴, it is possible to know the current lubrication regime at the
inlet of the roll bite.
Figure 7 shows schematically the roll bite; the contact arc, de-
limited from points A and D, the strip thickness h1 and h2 at the
entry and the exit, respectively, the roll and strip velocity Ur and
Us, the inlet angle between the strip and roll ⌽0, and the neutral
point position 共N兲 indicated with the dashed-dotted line can be
observed.
Analyzing Eq. 共12兲, it can be noticed that the parameter ⌳m is a
function of ⌬u; hence, if the sliding velocity is null 共⌬u = 0兲, as

Fig. 6 Stress-strain curves: tensile and compression tests „AISI 304…

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Fig. 7 Activation of MPHL in the forward „A-B… and backward
„C-D… zones
occurring at the neutral point, the conditions that allow the oil to
leave the pits are not satisfied. Furthermore, there is a region
around the neutral point, qualitatively delimited by points B and C
in which the ⌬u value is small, so that MPHL will not be effective
and will not allow the oil to leave the pit. However, in case the
defect is not recovered in the backward zone 共arc AB in Fig. 7兲,
the MPHL mechanism could be active in the forward zone 共arc
CD兲, so that the oil still entrapped can leave the pit and the defect
can be totally recovered. From these considerations the first idea
of our approach arises, that is to avoid the assumption of neutral
point at the end of the bite, which, moreover, is not well satisfied
in the Sendzimir rolling processes.
The second, essential modification here proposed for the MPHL
analysis consists in replacing the yield stress of the material that
appears at the denominator of Eq. 共9兲 with the contact pressure, so
the lubricant film thickness at the edge of the pit can be written as
Fig. 8 FEM results
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6␩0␣兩⌬u兩
h1 = 共16兲
␪共e−␣共 PC/2兲 − e−␣共3PC/2兲兲
where the absolute value of the sliding speed 兩⌬u兩 and the contact
pressure PC are evaluated from finite element simulations instead
of considering the simplified equations given by the theory. Prin-
cipally, the use of contact pressure was preferred to that of yield
stress because the former should be more “physically based” with
respect to the hydrodynamic phenomena governing the oil flow;
on the contrary, the adoption of yield stress as in formula 共12兲,
even if one accounts for the strain hardening of the material, rep-
resents a simplifying assumption based on the de-facto observa-
tion of pit deformation. The factors 1/2 and 3/2 are empirical and
simply mean that the pressure increases at the top of the asperity
and decreases at the bottom of the valley; they have not been
modified in the present work. Appearing on the exponent, the
parameter PC is critical and its strong influence on lubricant vis-
cosity seems to explain the discrepancy between experiments and
theoretical analysis, as it will be shown in next section.
The commercial finite element code MSC/Marc® has been used
to reproduce numerically the two rolling schedules illustrated
above: the first one with process parameters that led to defects
such as those in Fig. 1 and the second one in which the defect was
recovered 共Fig. 5共a兲兲. The FEM model is bidimensional under the
hypothesis of plane strain; the roll surface was modeled as rigid,
in agreement to that reported in Sec. 2.1.
In rolling processes, the elastic deformation of rolls can influ-
ence the sliding speed distribution in the contact region; however,
due to materials and geometry considered here, this effect has
been considered negligible, as exploratory FEM simulations
showed an increment of less than 3% in contact arc length when
considering a deformable roll.
Figure 8 shows a contour map of the total equivalent plastic
strain; the N position is estimated by analyzing the contact friction
force 共Ft兲 and by determining the abscissa where the sign inver-
sion occurs 共see the enlargement兲.
Transactions of the ASME
 Fig. 9 „a… Sliding speed for rolling schedule 1 and „b… sliding
speed for rolling schedule 2
5 Results and Discussion
The measured roughness values reported in the first column of
Table 4 are sheet annealed/pickled typical values; the values in the
second column refer to a correct cold rolling process where the
roll roughness is transferred to the sheet metal. If the pit defects
are still present after the process, it means that the oil trapped in
the valleys could not leave them because the hydrostatic pressure
prevented its elimination. In agreement with this hypothesis, the
entraining oil effect and the MPHL mechanism have been studied;
to do this, the two aforementioned indexes ⌳in and ⌳m have been
computed by inputting the lubricant and roughness values and the
FEM results into Eqs. 共5兲 and 共12兲.
The former parameter 共⌳in兲 has been used to find out if the
entraining oil was below a threshold for which pit isolation was
possible 共that is to check if the current lubrication was in mixed or
boundary regimes兲 and the latter 共⌳m兲 to find out if the MPHL
was effective enough to allow the oil to be drawn out. It was
found that the ⌳in values were less than one 共precisely 0.0071 for
the rolling process 1 with defect and 0.0072 for rolling 2 without
defect兲, confirming that the microcavities isolation was possible
for both processes and the lubrication was in boundary regime.
However, the oil should be drawn out by hydrodynamic actions
but this was not effective enough in the first case and the defects
were not totally recovered. Here, the standard MPHL theory has
been applied with some modifications in order to explain the ex-
perimental evidence.
In order to integrate Eq. 共12兲 to compute the value of ⌳m, the
film thickness h1 has to be evaluated first; it varies along the
contact arc and it depends on the sliding velocity. Figures 9共a兲 and
9共b兲 show the sliding velocity for the rolling schedules 1 and 2,
Journal of Tribology
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Fig. 10 „a… Contact normal stress „from FEM… and „b… von
Mises stress „from FEM…
respectively, as computed by Eq. 共10兲 and as obtained by FEM.
The abscissa axis has been normalized to compare different roll-
ing processes. It can be observed that besides certain oscillations
not considered by the analytical model, the FEM results show
how MPHL can be active also after the neutral point; further, it is
possible to note that the negative sliding speed at the end of the
bite is greater for schedule 2. The neutral point is found to occur
at 67% of the contact arc for schedule 1 while it moves back to
60% when rolling with lower back-tension and reduction 共sched-
ule 2兲. The average of the absolute value of sliding speed was
0.262 m/s and 0.235 m/s for rolling schedule 1 and rolling sched-
ule 2, respectively; nevertheless, it must be noted that the average
sliding speed after point N is greater in the second rolling sched-
ule 共0.117 m/s兲 than in the first one 共0.094 m/s兲.
Figure 10共a兲 shows the contact normal stress along the roll bite
for both conditions; the von Mises yield stress is reported in Fig.
10共b兲. It can be observed that the rolling schedule 1 with the
higher reduction presents higher von Mises stress values 共because
of the larger plastic deformation impressed兲; in the rolling sched-
ule 2, the net effect of smaller back-tension and smaller thickness
reduction is represented by a higher contact pressure in spite of a
lower von Mises stress; the fact that only rolling schedule 2 was
able to recover the defects suggested that at the denominator of
Eq. 共12兲, the contact pressure should appear instead of material
yield stress, leading to the already presented Eq. 共16兲.
Figures 11共a兲 and 11共b兲 show the oil film thickness for both
rolling conditions as it is computed by Eq. 共16兲 with FEM data
and by analytical model Eq. 共9兲 where an average yield stress of
600 MPa has been used for ␴0. It can be observed how the ana-
lytical curve gives a reasonable estimate only before the neutral
point N while it totally misses the contribution to oil expulsion
JANUARY 2011, Vol. 133 / 012202-7
 Fig. 11 „a… Film thickness for schedule 1 and „b… film thick- Fig. 12 „a… ⌳m parameter for schedule 1 and „b… ⌳m parameter
ness for schedule 2 for schedule 2

after N; this happens because in the last region of the bite, even if
the sliding speed is quite small 共and with reversed direction兲, the
oil pressure is very high and the film thickness increases signifi- because it moves the neutral point in backward direction, thus, to
cantly. This confirms that the position of N must be considered in increment the sliding speed in the forward region where the con-
the analysis and also, that the forward zone plays an important tact pressure reaches its maximum.
role in the MPHL phenomena.
The final values of ⌳m are reported in Table 5 together with
By integration of these curves and dividing by the initial pit
other two rolling schedules experimented for validation purposes;
volume, it is possible to calculate the ⌳m parameter, which is the
ratio between the oil expelled from the cavity and the pit volume; it is possible to observe that the ⌳m values are all of the same
it is plotted versus the rolling distance in Figs. 12共a兲 and 12共b兲. It order of magnitude and are only slightly greater than unity, con-
can be observed that the oil expulsion ratio is only slightly lower firming that the efficacy of MPHL is limited and the defect may
for rolling schedule 2 before N but it strongly increases after N not be recovered. In border cases where rolling conditions are at
because of combined effects of high contact pressure and higher half way between defect recovery or conservation, the theory may
sliding speed if compared with schedule 1 and the final value of not be reliable enough to make real predictions 共⌳m values are
⌳m is greater. close to one and variations are small兲; on the other hand, the ⌳m
In conclusion, the reduction of back-tension appears to have parameter, as computed in this work 共FEM兲, presents the correct
positive effects not only in increasing the contact pressure but also trend with respect to experimental evidence while the analytical
model 共STD兲 fails even in the prediction of MPHL improvement
or deterioration.
Table 5 ⌳m values Passing from schedule 1 to schedule 2, which permitted to
avoid pits, the present study shows a certain increment in ⌳m,
Low reduction High reduction
共24.4%兲 共26.4%兲 meaning that more oil is expelled from the pits while the standard
theory predicts an even worse situation 共with lower ⌳m兲. Again,
Recovered 共schedule 2兲 Recovered 共schedule 3兲 passing from schedule 1 to schedule 3, the defects were recovered
Low back tension
⌳m fem = 2.1 ⌳m fem = 2.4 in practice but ⌳m computed by the standard theory does not
共39.4 MPa兲
⌳m std = 1.5 ⌳m std = 1.7 reveal any enhancement; the proposed method shows, on the con-
trary, a 26% increment in oil extraction. Lastly, schedule 4 with
Defected 共schedule 4兲 Defected 共schedule 1兲
High back tension high back-tension and low reduction was affected by pit defects
⌳m fem = 1.7 ⌳m fem = 1.9
共66.4 MPa兲 and both methods correctly show worsening of ⌳m parameter with
⌳m std = 1.5 ⌳m std = 1.7
respect to schedule 1.

012202-8 / Vol. 133, JANUARY 2011 Transactions of the ASME

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 6 Conclusion
This work investigated the phenomena that lead to defect re-
covery in cold rolling of thin strips in Sendzimir mills. Knowing
that pits, like defects, arise from the lubricant that is entrapped in
surface cavity due to initial roughness, the activation of micro-
plastohydrodynamic lubrication is necessary to expel as much oil
as possible from the cavities. Two particular case studies have
been presented here where the standard MPHL theory fails in
prediction of defect recovery or persistence; therefore, a revision
of the standard approach is proposed in order to give an a poste-
riori explanation of the experimental evidence. The analytical
treatment has been supported by FEM simulations, which permit-
ted to compute the values of the essential parameters along the
roll bite. The actual distributions of sliding speed and contact
pressure are found to have a significant role in oil expulsion be-
cause of their strong influence on the oil film thickness; they are
showed to receive beneficial effects from the reduction of back-
tension because not only the contact pressure is increased but also
the neutral point is moved backward and the sliding speed is in-
cremented in the forward region where the contact pressure
reaches its maximum. The validity of the proposed approach has
been confirmed by two further rolling conditions.
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