Description

Direct-drawn high-carbon wire is required to meet specific tensile and, in many cases, torsional requirements. These are determined mainly by steel chemistry and cooling rate following rolling. Requirements are now placed on wiredrawers not only to meet the required range of mechanical properties, but also to reduce variation around the mean, i.e., to improve CpK values of their process. This paper presents the influence of such rolling variables as cooling rate, ring spacing, airflow distribution, RSM mill entry temperature and aging on tensile variation. Typical chemistry variations are also presented to provide realistic limits for heat average and individual variations for a given grade.