Geometrical characterization of low carbon steel wires drawn with flat idle rolls

This paper deals with a geometrical characterization of low carbon steel wires drawn with flat idle rolls, namely, Roll Drawing (RD). Despite conventional wire drawing, in roll drawing, the wire is not completely in contact with the rolls, therefore material flow evolution requires further attention. Finite element simulations, under various loading conditions, were carried out to address the material flow to the main process parame-ters, e.g., wire diameter, roll radius, roll gap, material flow stress and friction conditions. Results from numeri-cal data were used to develop a neural network which allows to predict the cross sectional shape of proc-essed wires with roll drawing avoiding further numerical investigation. Material lateral spreading and radius of curvature of worked products were measured on the neural network to compare with the finite element data. Through such comparison, the validity of the proposed neural network was verified. The material flow of sub-sequent flat-round pass needed to produce a finished wire is addressed in a subsequent investigation.