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Producing hollow shafts in a new horizontal mill by novel flat-knifing cross-wedge rolling with single guide

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Abstract

To meet the requirement of lightweight, an increasing number of solid shafts are designed to be hollow in transportation industry. In this study, a novel method of flat-knifing cross-wedge rolling (FCWR) with single guide is proposed including a modified roller, a horizontal mill, and a single-guide structure, and its key problems are studied by numerical simulations and experimental tests. A mathematical model of FCWR roller is established, which reveals that the wedge length of rollers is effectively reduced by modifying knifing wedge from normalized roller. Furthermore, a horizontal multifunctional mill is invented and constructed to carry out the FCWR experiment with single guide. According to the results from the numerical simulations and corresponding experiments, it is observed that the typical defects of hole expansion and knifing groove are absolutely avoided because the improved flat-knifing wedge produces a radial force to shrink the inner hole and avoid the deformation concentration of the outer surface during knifing stage. Moreover, the single-guide rolling performed in the horizontal mill efficiently improves rolling stability because the workpiece is restricted into a smaller workspace. To the authors’ knowledge, all these integrated improvements of FCWR roller, single-guide rolling, and horizontal mill are innovative, which are of great engineering significance to manufacture hollow shafts on account of the advantages of avoiding forming defect, reducing roller diameter, improving rolling stability, and simplifying mill structure.

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Availability of data and materials

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

α :

Forming angle

β :

Stretching angle

B :

Knifing width

L :

Sizing width

η :

Workpiece reduction

h :

Wedge height

d m :

Mandrel diameter

D 0 , d 0 :

Outer and inner diameter of workpiece before rolling

D 1 , d 1 :

Outer and inner diameter of workpiece after rolling

L N1 , L F1 :

Knifing length of NCWR wedge and FCWR wedge

L N 2, L F2 :

Stretching length of NCWR wedge and FCWR wedge

L N3 , L F3 :

Sizing length of NCWR wedge and FCWR wedge

L R :

Wedge length reduction from NCWR to FCWR

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Funding

This work is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFB1307900). This work is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51875036).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, No.30 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100083, China

    Longfei Lin, Baoyu Wang, Jinxia Shen & Tao Liu

  2. Beijing Laboratory of Metallic Materials and Processing for Modern Transportation, Beijing, 100083, China

    Baoyu Wang

Authors
  1. Longfei Lin
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  2. Baoyu Wang
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Contributions

Longfei Lin: Software, validation, methodology, and writing-original draft. Baoyu Wang: Project administration, supervision, and funding acquisition. Jinxia Shen: Methodology and writing-reviewing and editing. Tao Liu: Investigation, data curation and writing-reviewing and editing.

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Correspondence to Baoyu Wang.

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Lin, L., Wang, B., Shen, J. et al. Producing hollow shafts in a new horizontal mill by novel flat-knifing cross-wedge rolling with single guide. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 118, 2685–2700 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-021-08023-0

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