Description

Medium C-low alloy steels for cold-heading applications are normally produced by hot rolling, subsequent cooling and soft annealing. With thermo-mechanical rod rolling used at the authors’ company, it is possible to obtain optimized microstructures and improved mechanical properties-such as lower tensile strength and high reduction in area-values which are attractive for cold-forming operations. In some cases, the mechanical properties of thermo-mechanical processed wire rod allow the elimination of the cost-intensive soft-annealing treatment.