Chapter-Three

Rolling of metals

Overview:
Introduction
Cold and hot working
Rolling mills
Typical Roll materials
Rolling processes
Defects in rolled products

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Introduction

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 Introduction

ROLLING: the Process of Plastically deforming metal / alloy by

passing it between rolls. The thickness of a slab/plate is reduced
by cylindrical rolls which rotate to pull the material between
them and compress it
• Rolling done either at Hot or cold.
• The metal is drawn into the opening (gap) between the rolls by
frictional forces.
• Work piece is subjected to high compressive forces due to
squeezing action of rolls, resulting in reduced area of cross-
section and increased length. Kidu G.
 Introduction

• Rolling is usually first process used to convert material into

a finished wrought product.
• Stock can be rolled into blooms, billets, slabs, or these
shapes can be obtained directly from continuous casting.
– A bloom has a square or rectangular cross section, with
a thickness greater than 6 inches and a width no greater
than twice the thickness.

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 Introduction

– A billet is usually smaller than a bloom and has a square

or circular cross section. Billets are usually produced by
some form of deformation process, such as rolling or
extrusion.

– A slab is a rectangular solid where the width is greater

than twice the thickness. Slabs can be further rolled to
produce plate, sheet, and strip

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 Introduction

• Blooms and billets rolled into finished products, such as

structural shapes or railroad rail, or processed into semi-
finished shapes, such as bar, rod, tube, or pipe

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 Temperature in Metal Forming

Cold working (room temperature or slightly higher)

Warm working (30% - 50% of the melting

temperature)

Hot working (50% - 75% of the melting temperature)

Isothermal forming: Tools are preheated to prevent

surface cooling during forming

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Temperature in Metal Forming

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 Cold Working

Advantages
- No heating required
- Better surface finish
- Better dimensional accuracy
- Parts are interchangeable
- Better strength, fatigue and wear properties
- Directional properties can be imparted
- Minimal contamination problems
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 Cold Working

Disadvantages
- Higher forces required
- More powerful equipment required
- Less ductility is available
- Surfaces must be clean
- Intermediate anneals may be needed to restore
ductility
- Directional properties may be detrimental
- May produce undesirable residual stresses
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Roll Loading

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 Rolling Mills
• Two-high
– primary roughing (cogging mills).

• Three-high
– primary roughing (reversing mill).

• Four High & Cluster

– principal (small diameter) rolls lower the roll forces and
power requirements, but must be supported in order to
reduce deflection.

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Rolling Mills

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 Rolling Mills
Roll configurations in rolling mills
Two-high and three-high mills are generally used for initial
and intermediate passes during hot rolling, while four-high
and cluster mills are used for final passes.

 Last two arrangements are preferred for cold rolling because

roll in these configurations are supported by back-up rolls
which minimize the deflections and produce better

tolerances.
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 Rolling Mills
• Various Roll Configurations, (a) Two-high (b) Three-high
(c) Four-high, (d) Cluster mill (e) Tandem mill

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 Rolling Mills
Figure : Various roll arrangements: (a) two-high; (b) three- high; (c)
four-high; (d) cluster (Sendzimir) mill.

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 Rolling Mills

• Tandem Rolling
– strip is rolled continuously through a number of
strands (set of rolls with its own separate housing
and controls) to smaller gauges with each pass.

– Group of Strands = train

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 Rolling Mills
Tandem Rolling……

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 Tandem Rolling….

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4

w0 w1 w2 w3 wf
h0 h1 h2 h3 hf

V0 V1 V2 V3 Vf

Volume conserved
h0V0 w0  h1V1w1  h2V2 w2  h3V3 w3  h f V f w f
Rolling schedules
Equal drafts h0  h1  h1  h2  h2  h3  h3  h f

Equal strains h0 h1 h2 h3
ln  ln  ln  ln
h1 h2 h3 hf
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 Roll Deflection

• Rolling forces cause deflection and roll flattening.

– Crown: thicker in the center than the edges.

– Chamber: thicker in the edges than center.

– Spreading: increase of width after rolled.

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 Roll Deflection
• Forces can be reduced by:
– reducing friction.
– reducing contact area.
– smaller reductions per pass.
– rolling at elevated temperatures to reduce strength of
material.

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 Reducing Roll Forces that Deflect and Flatten the Rolls
• Reduce rolling forces by
– Reducing friction
– Using smaller diameter
rolls to reduce the contact
area
– Taking smaller reductions
per pass (also to reduce
the contact area)
– Rolling at elevated
temperatures to lower the
strength of the material • Grind rolls with a camber to
prevent crowning of the rolled
– Apply longitudinal tension
strip
to the strip during rolling
– back tension on the pay- • Radius of maximum camber
off reel or front tension on point generally 0.25 mm greater
the take-up reel than at roll edges
• Simulate camber by bending the
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 Roll Materials

– Cast iron

– Cast steel

– Forged steel
[because of high strength and wear resistance requirements]

– Aluminum Alloys

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 Rolled Material Thicknesses
• Plates – thickness greater than 6 mm (1/4 inch);
• boiler supports (0.3 m, 12 inch)
• reactor vessels (150 mm, 6 inch)
• battleships and tanks (100-125 mm, 4-5 inch)
• Sheets – less than 6 mm thick; flat pieces, strips, and coils for
beverage containers, automobile and aircraft bodies, appliances,
kitchen and office equipment
• Boeing 747 skin thickness – 1.8 mm (0.071 inch)
• Lockheed L1011 skin thickness – 1.9 mm (0.075 inch)
• Aluminum beverage cans – start as sheets that are 0.28 mm
(0.011 inch) thick; later reduced to 0.1 mm (0.004 inch) by
deep drawing
• Aluminum foil – 0.008 mm (0.0003 inch)
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 Rolled Metal Characteristics

• Residual stresses
• Dimensional tolerances for cold-rolled sheet thicknesses +/-
0.1 mm to 0.35 mm (0.004 to 0.014 inch)
• Flatness tolerances to within +/- 15 mm/m (3/16 inch/foot)
for cold rolling, +/- 55 mm/m (5/8 inch/foot) for hot rolling
• Hot rolling and sand casting produce similar ranges for
surface finish
• Cold rolling produces a very fine surface finish
• Gage number identifies standard thicknesses of sheet (the
smaller the number, the thicker the sheet)

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 Rolling processes
1) Flat-rolling
– hot or cold work (slabs, blooms, billets, or sheet metal).
• 3000 °F for refractory alloys.
• 2300 °F for alloy steels.
• 850 °F for aluminum alloys.

– Pack Rolling: two or more layers of metal rolled

together (Al foil example)

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 Rolling processes
2) Shape Rolling
– structural shapes (I-beam, rails, etc.)
– requires specially designed rolls

3) Ring Rolling
– ring (which is the part) placed between two rolls, to
increase diameter.
– large rings for rockets, gearwheel rims, ball bearing and
roller- bearing races, flanges, reinforcing rings for pipes,
etc.

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 Rolling processes
4) Thread rolling
– cold-forming process where threads are formed on round
rods by use of flat reciprocating dies which pass the part
between them.
– no material loss.
– no cutting through grain line flow improves strength.

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 Rolling processes

5) Rotary Tube Piercing

– hot working process for making long, thick walled

seamless tubing/pipe.

– round bar subjected to radial compressive forces causing

tensile stresses toward the center of the bar.

– cavity forms from cyclic compressive stresses.

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 Rolling processes

• Terminology (raw material)

– Bloom: square cross section of at least 6" on the side.
(sheets)

– Billets: square cross section, smaller than bloom. (rod,

pipe)

– Slab: rectangular in shape, rolled into plates and sheet.

(rails, I-beams)
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 Terminology Contd.,

• Angle of contact or Angle of bite – The Angle subtended at

the centre of the roll by arc AB ( Metal in contact with the
roll)
• Rolling Pass – The feeding of material between the rolls
once
• Rolling mill – Consists of rolls , bearings& Housings and
Drive for applying power to rolls

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 1) Flat Rolling Process Stages

Hot rolling of ingot or a continuously cast slab converts it

to a wrought structure called a bloom (square) or slab
(rectangular)
• Bloom may next go to shape rolling
• Slabs may be rolled into plates and sheet

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Typical Rolled Products

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Typical Rolled Products

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Flat and Shape
Rolling
Processes

Sequence of operations for

obtaining different shapes
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Flat Rolling Process (hot and cold rolled)

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 Flat Rolling Process ….

• Metal strip enters the roll gap

• The strip is reduced in size by the metal rolls
• The velocity of the strip is increased the metal strip is
reduced in size
• Factors affecting Rolling Process
– Frictional Forces
– Roll Force and Power Requirement

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 Flat Rolling Process parameters
• Initial thickness ho • Surface speed of rolls Vr
• Final thickness hf • Entry velocity of strip Vo
• Roll gap L • Final velocity of the strip Vf
• Neutral point, no-slip point – point along contact length
where velocity of the strip equals velocity of the roll

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Geometry of Rolling
h0/2 h1/2

CL
B
L
A R

R R-h/2


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• The angle of bite α can be expressed as;
tan α = α = L/R
• The length of contact, (2)
L=̃ sqrt{R(ho-hf )}
h0 is the strip thickness at start and R is the roll
radius
• Where, h0-hf = µ2R

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 Flat Rolling Process parameters….

• Draft: ho – hf
• Maximum draft possible: ho – hf = m2R
• Coefficient of friction m
• Roll radius R
• The strip thickness is reduced at each rolling pass and the
strip width increases slightly (around 2%)

• h0V0w0 = hfVfwf. Typically wf = 1.02 w0

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 Flat Rolling Process parameters….
• Roll Force: F = LwYavg
Where, L=Roll-strip contact length
W=Average strip width – despite the fact that spreading,
or an increase in width, may actually occur if edger
mills are not used
Yavg = Average true stress of the strip in the roll gap
• Assumes no friction and thus predicts lower roll force
than the actual value
• Power per roll (SI units) = pFLN / 60,000 kW
– Where F is in Newtons, L is in meters, and N is rpm of
roll
• Power per roll (English units) = pFLN / 33,000 hp
Where F is in lbs, L is in ft. Kidu G.
 Flat Rolling Process parameters….

L  Rh0  h f 
• Contact length

• Average flow stress:

Y  k n
f

 d
 n
k f
 k n 1  f
Yave  0
  k
f   f (n  1)  0 n 1
h0
• In rolling:  f  ln
hf
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 2) Shape Rolling Operations

• Various shapes can be produced by shape rolling

– Bars
– Channels
– I-beams
– Railroad rails

• Roll-pass design requires considerable experience in order

to avoid external and internal defects

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Shape Rolling

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 Shape Rolling
Uses a series of specially shaped rolls to form a beam with a
specific cross section (such as an I-beam)

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Shape Rolling of an H-section part (Stages)

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 Typical Shape-Rolling Operations

• Different Shapes

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 3) Ring Rolling
• A thick ring is expanded into a large diameter ring
– The ring is placed between the two rolls
– One of which is driven
– The thickness is reduced by bringing the rolls together
• The ring shaped blank my be produced by:
– Cutting from plate
– Piercing
– Cutting from a thick walled pipe
• Typical applications of ring rolling:
– Large rings for rockets
– Gearwheel rims
– Ball-bearing and roller-bearing races
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Ring Rolling

Fig. (a) ring-rolling

operation. Thickness
reduction results in an
increase in the part diameter.

(b) Examples of cross-

sections that can be formed
by ring rolling.
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Ring Rolling

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 4) Thread Rolling
• Cold-forming process
• Straight or tapered threads are formed on round rods by
passing the pipe though dies
• Typical products include
– Screws
– Bolts

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 Thread Rolling
Fig.Thread-rolling
processes: (a) and (c)
reciprocating flat dies;
(b) two-roller dies.

(a) Features of a machined or rolled

thread.
(b) Grain flow in machined and rolled
threads.
Improved strength, because of cold
working and favorable grain flow.
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Thread Rolling

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 5) Rotary Tube Piercing
(Production of Seamless Pipe & Tubing)
• Hot-working process
– Produces long thick-walled seamless pipe
– Carried out by using an arrangement of rotating rolls
• Tensile stresses develop at the center of the bar when it is
subjected to compressive forces

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Production of Seamless Pipe & Tubing

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 Tube Rolling

Fig. various tube-

rolling processes:
(a) with fixed
mandrel; (b) with
moving mandrel;
(c) without
mandrel; and (d)
pilger rolling
over a mandrel
and a pair of
shaped rolls.
Tube diameters
and thicknesses
can also be
changed by other
processes, such as
drawing,
extrusion, and Kidu G.
Example of a Tube Rolling Mill

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 Defects in Rolling (plates and sheets)
• Surface defects – scale, rust, scratches, gouges, pits, and
cracks
• Wavy edges – due to roll bending
• Alligatoring – complex phenomenon that may be due to
non-uniform deformation or defects in the billet
Figure : typical defects
in flat rolling: (a) wavy
edges; (b) zipper cracks
in the center of the strip;
(c) edge cracks; and (d)
alligatoring.

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