Introduction

ROLLING OF METALS is perhaps the most important metalworking process. More than 90% of
all the steel, aluminum,
and copper produced--in 1985, some 800 million tons of material worldwide--go through the
rolling process at least one
time. Thus, rolled products represent a significant portion of the manufacturing economy and
can be found in many
sectors. Beams and columns used in buildings are rolled from steel. Railroad tracks and cars
are made from rolled steel,
and airplane bodies are made from rolled aluminum and titanium alloys. The wire used in
fences, elevator ropes, electrical
conductors, and cables are drawn from rolled rods. Many consumer items, including
automobiles, home appliances,
kitchen utensils, and beverage cans, use rolled sheet materials.
In rolling, a squeezing type of deformation is accomplished by using two work rolls (Fig. 1)
rotating in opposite
directions. The principal advantage of rolling lies in its ability to produce desired shapes from
relatively large pieces of
metals at very high speeds in a somewhat continuous manner. Because other methods of
metalworking, such as forging,
are relatively slow, most ingots and large blooms are rolled into billets, bars, structural
shapes, rods (for drawing into
wire), and rounds for making seamless tubing. Steel slabs are rolled into plate and sheet.

Basic Rolling Processes

Many engineering metals, such as aluminum alloys, copper alloys, and steels, are often cast
into ingots and are then
further processed by hot rolling into blooms, slabs, and billets, which are subsequently rolled
into other products such as
plate, sheet, tube, rod, bar, and structural shapes (Fig. 2). The definitions of these terms are
rather loose and are based on
the traditional terminology used in the primary metal industry. For example, a bloom has a
nearly square cross section
with an area larger than 205 cm2 (32 in.2); the minimum cross section of a billet is about 38
38 mm (1.5 1.5 in.), and a
slab is a hot-rolled ingot with a cross-sectional area greater than 103 cm 2 (16 in.2) and a
section width of at least twice the
section thickness. Plates are generally thicker than 6.4 mm (0.25 in.), whereas sheets are
thinner-gage materials with very
large width-to-thickness ratios. Sheet material with a thickness of a few thousandths of an
inch is referred to as foil.
Rolling of blooms, slabs, billets, plates, and structural shapes is usually done at temperatures
above the recrystallization
temperature, that is, in the hot-forming range, where large reductions in height or thickness
are possible with moderate
forming pressures. Sheet and strip often are rolled cold in order to maintain close thickness
tolerances.
Fig.

The primary objectives of the rolling process are to reduce the cross section of the incoming
material while improving its
properties and to obtain the desired section at the exit from the rolls. The process can be
carried out hot, warm, or cold,
depending on the application and the material involved. The technical literature on rolling
technology, equipment, and
theory is extensive because of the significance of the process (Ref 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5). Many
industrial investigators prefer
to divide rolling into cold and hot rolling processes. From a fundamental point of view,
however, it is more appropriate to
classify rolling processes on the bases of the complexity of metal flow during the process and
the geometry of the rolled
product. Thus, the rolling of solid sections can be divided into the categories below.
Simplified Method for Estimating Roll-Separating Force. The strip-rolling process is illustrated in

Fig. 3.
Because of volume constancy, the following relations hold:

W H0 V0 = W H V = W H1 V1

(Eq 1)

where W is the width of the strip; H0, H, and H1 are the thicknesses at the entrance, in the
deformation zone, and at the
exit, respectively; and V0, V, and V1 are the velocities at the entrance, in the deformation zone,
and at the exit,
respectively. In order to satisfy Eq 1. the exit velocity V1 must be larger than the entrance
velocity V0. Therefore, the
velocity of the deforming material in the x or rolling direction must steadily increase from
entrance to exit. At only one
point along the roll-strip interface is the surface velocity of the roll, VR, equal to the velocity of
the strip. This point is
called the neutral point, or neutral plane, indicated by N in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3 Representation of strip rolling. The strip width w is constant in the y (width) direction.

The interface frictional stresses are directed from the entrance and exit planes toward the
neutral plane because the
relative velocity between the roll surface and the strip changes its direction at the neutral
plane. This will be considered
later in estimating rolling stresses.
An approximate value for the roll-separating force can be obtained by approximating the
deformation zone, shown in Fig.
3, with the homogeneous plane-strain upsetting process. With this assumption, Eq 2 is valid,
that is, the load per unit
width of the strip is given by:

(Eq 2)

However, in this case the following approximations must be made:

Average
Average

strip height h = 0.5(H0 + H1)

length of the deforming strip l = R D, with cos D = 1 - (H0 - H1)2R. In the
literature, it is
often recommended that the value of the projection of strip length XD (Fig. 3) be used
for l; however,
considering the effect of friction on the roll-strip interface length, R D, it is more
appropriate to use l =
RD