Improvement of Rolling Dynamics to Increase Roller Life in Ball Rolling

The downtime of ball-rolling mills is largely associated with the replacement of worn rollers. In the present work, the degree and location of critical roller wear are studied: the greatest wear is observed at the flanges in the billet-capture zone. The conditions required for billet capture and successful rolling are determined analytically. Variation in roller speed during billet supply is proposed. Tests are conducted with linear and quadratic variation in roller speed. The familiar formulas for the mean deformation rate are modified for linear and quadratic variation in roller speed. Experiments are conducted on the ball-rolling mill of AO EVRAZ Nizhnetagil’skii Metallurgicheskii Kombinat (NTMK), in rolling 60-mm ШЗГsteel grinding balls on a 40–80 rolling mill. In the experiments, the roller speed is varied manually according to a specified program, with billet capture by the rollers. It is found that speed variation significantly affects the mean pressure at the instant of billet capture. Time dependences of the torque and the mean contact pressure are plotted on the basis of calculation results and experimental data. Empirical characteristics with linear and quadratic variation in roller speed are presented. The permissible agreement of the calculated and empirical results is determined. The installation of a thyristor converter is proposed, so as to decrease the roller speed before billet capture and restore the speed to the rated value in specified fashion after capture. That yields a uniform distribution of the mean contact pressure over the roller length during automatic operation of the mill in different conditions. As a result, the roller wear is decreased, without loss of mill productivity. That reduces roller consumption and the mill downtime for roller replacement.