A new method for predicting the three-dimensional surface texture transfer in the skin pass rolling of metal strips

Revealing the mechanisms of texture transfer in the skin pass of metal rolling is challenging due to the complex contact of randomly distributed surface asperities in both the roll and strip surfaces. This paper presents a novel three-dimensional characterisation method to overcome such difficulties. In this method, the plastic deformation of the random asperities was treated by the material redistribution at asperity tips. A time increment scheme was used to draw the rough surfaces of work roll and strip into the rolling bite. Within each time increment, an iterative technique was developed to predict the surface topography of the strip with the integration of the randomly-rough surface of the work roll. A systematic comparison with the finite element analysis (FEA) confirmed that the method developed can reliably predict the surface texture transfer. In addition, it was found that the surface topography of a metal strip can be significantly affected by the texture transfer from the work roll, that a larger reduction ratio results in a higher texture transfer ratio, and that the work roll surface topography is critical to the formation of desired strip surfaces.