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Development of a measurement method for tracking the position of hot steel rings on an industrial radial-axial ring rolling mill

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Abstract

Steel rings with a circumferential variable cross section, in this case eccentric rings, are used in different fields, i.e. mechanical engineering. Current production routes of eccentric rings have the disadvantages of limited or inflexible geometries, high material waste or inhomogeneous microstructure. The radial-axial ring rolling process is an incremental forming process used to produce seamless rolled steel rings with a near-net shape cross-section. A new approach is to achieve eccentricity by dynamically adjusting the mandrel position during ring rolling. In the past, the basic feasibility of this approach has been demonstrated with model materials such as an oil-clay mixture. In an ongoing project, the feasibility should be demonstrated in an industrial scale ring rolling process with steel rings and the process limits should be investigated. In order to correctly synchronize the infeed of the mandrel with the cross-section variation over the entire process, the rotational position of the ring must be known at any time. Optical geometry detection method chosen in previous work is not easily implementable for ring rolling of hot steel rings due to industrial process conditions. Therefore, this paper describes an approach based on Hall sensors that are suitable for the rough process conditions and determine the ring position on the basis of measured circumferential. Experiments with hot and cold rings were carried out to improve the measured value recording and a calculation for position detection was determined. Furthermore, the described position detection method was tested with FEA-simulations and validated with real experiment.

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Acknowledgements

The work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)–454751242.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Metal Forming (IBF), RWTH Aachen University, Intzestraße 10, 52056, Aachen, Germany

    M. Gröper, D. Bailly & G. Hirt

  2. SMS Group GmbH, Eduard-Schloemann-Straße 4, 40237, Düsseldorf, Germany

    S. Stergianou

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  1. M. Gröper
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  2. S. Stergianou
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  4. G. Hirt
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Correspondence to M. Gröper.

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Gröper, M., Stergianou, S., Bailly, D. et al. Development of a measurement method for tracking the position of hot steel rings on an industrial radial-axial ring rolling mill. Prod. Eng. Res. Devel. 18, 581–591 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11740-023-01232-4

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