A Study of Friction in Non‐Lubricated High Temperature Steel Processing

Abstract

The effect of friction on the cost of steel rolling and the overall quality of the strip has been overlooked in favour of more controllable aspects, such as temperature and microstructure. When friction is considered, predominantly empirical relationships are employed that have been developed in smaller scale experiments and are not necessarily applicable to the industrial scale. An advancement to the adhesion theory of friction has been developed by Straffelini that links friction with material properties, which compares well with pin-on-disk experiments at room temperature using metallic tribo-pairs. For the purposes of creating conditions analogous to hot rolling of steel, a tool steel (100Cr6) dowel and an oxidised steel sample have been used in a reciprocating friction tester to create a relatively controlled environment in which to study friction at high temperature. The simplified adhesive theory was found to agree well with these experimental results, demonstrating that this theory can be applied to a broader range of conditions than previously tested against.