Cold rolling is a hardening process for different grades of stainless steel, as well as other types of metals, enabling profiles to be used across varying industries and applications. The process has many benefits, uses and differences to hot rolling steel.
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In this blog, we’re going to explore all about what cold rolled stainless steel is, how it works and some key aspects the process delivers.
Cold rolled steel (CRS) is a finished steel product that has gone through the universally utilised cold rolling process. Stainless steel is processed at room temperature using rollers to achieve a precise thickness, smooth finish and enhanced properties.
The cold rolling steel process improves strength, surface quality and dimensional accuracy, making it suitable for applications requiring high durability and a refined appearance.
Cold rolling occurs after the hot rolling process, further enhancing properties and providing more accurate thicknesses and measurements.
When looking at what cold rolled stainless steel is, it’s good to compare it to hot rolled steel. The key differences include:
Steel is put under immense mechanical stress and pressure during cold rolling, which increases the metal’s strength tenfold, as there is a permanent change in the crystalline structure. This is thanks to work hardening, resulting in improved tensile strength and resistance to wear. Applications requiring high durability and structural integrity will benefit from cold rolled steel’s enhanced strength.
What is cold rolled steel without its improved surface finish? The finished profile will have a smooth, clean finish, as being rolled at room temperature without added heat preserves the surface quality, resulting in a more refined, aesthetically pleasing surface.
Cold rolled stainless steel can undergo additional finishing processes, such as polishing, anodising (for certain alloys) and powder coating, to improve appearance, durability and performance.
Those looking for precision and accuracy for their applications can rely on the cold rolling process of stainless steel. The process allows for greater dimensional accuracy, ensuring consistent thickness and flatness, especially beneficial for medical, aerospace and electronics manufacturing.
Cold rolling steel is a versatile process and can be used for the different grades of stainless steel, as well as the finished product offering different thicknesses and finishes, allowing for vast customisation for applications. Whether you’re looking for high strength, excellent corrosion resistance or superb aesthetic appeal, cold rolling is the ideal process to choose.
Depending on the stainless steel grade, machinability can be improved with cold rolling, making it easier to cut, weld and shape. However, before cutting, welding and shaping, additional treatments during cold rolling can add stress to the metal, leading to warping and deformation.
If this is the case, during the process, performing annealing – or softening stress – will relieve internal stresses and improve formability.
Steel is widely utilised in the automotive and aerospace industries, and cold rolled stainless steel is used even more so thanks to its resistance to wear, shock-proof qualities and high tensile strength. Many standard features of vehicles, including seat parts, fuel tanks and electric motors, use cold rolled steel products.
The aerospace industry uses CRS for aircraft components, brackets and engine parts, where precision and lightweight materials are essential.
Because CRS possesses such a smooth finish and high strength, it is the preferred choice for structural beams, cladding, roofing and metal framing for construction projects. Pipes and tubes are often cold rolled as well, used in construction applications and manufacturing sites. The steel’s refined finish also makes it excellent for architectural and decorative elements across different projects.
Cold rolled steel, believe it or not, is found in numerous common household appliances and kitchen wear. Refrigerators, ovens, washing machines and commercial kitchen worktops all use cold rolled steel, and the ease of powder coating the steel applications with different colours allows manufacturers to offer a wide range of products for consumers.
CRS’ non-porous finish makes kitchen appliances and equipment easy to clean and highly resistant to bacteria.
Are you interested in learning more about cold rolled stainless steel coils? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!
Cold rolled steel is one of the most widely used processes for industries using the metal. Its benefits extend to an improved surface finish, increased strength, tighter tolerances and better versatility compared to hot rolled steel.
At Aluminium Online, we can provide you with a fantastic range of cold rolled stainless steel products including flat bars, round bars and rods, tapping screws, tubes and more.
In addition, we also provide a host of finishing processes to ensure you receive the ideal steel profiles for your specific applications. Reach us on 272 to talk to an expert on your requirements, or get in touch by emailing us at .
Cold rolling is a work hardening process used to change the structure of metals and is often used to process stainless steel. Cold rolled stainless steel as a raw material has a wide variety of applications in medical, aerospace and automotive engineering. Read on to learn more about what cold rolled steel is, how it's produced, and what it can be used for.
Cold rolled steel, sometimes abbreviated to CRS, is well-known for being an extremely ductile material, and is ideal for applications where precision is necessary. It is used in many applications, like household appliances, furniture, lockers, and filing cabinets. In construction applications, CRS is commonly used for building garages, steel sheds, and other industrial buildings.
In simple terms, cold rolling is the process of strengthening steel by changing its shape without using heat. Cold rolling, unlike hot rolling such as with hot rolled steel, can only occur when a metal is below its re-crystallization temperature. Where hot rolling is performed using high temperatures, cold rolling is performed at room temperature. Instead of heat, mechanical stress is used to change the structure of metal. Strain hardening can then increase the metal's strength by up to 20%, and can also improve a metal's surface finish.
During the cold rolling process, when the metal is put under mechanical stress, it causes a permanent change to the crystalline structure of the metal. This causes an increase in its strength and often improves corrosion resistance. Along with improving its surface finish, another advantage of cold rolling is better dimensional accuracy.
A cold rolled stainless steel coil can be precision manufactured, allowing the metal to be produced to extremely tight tolerances. The act of work hardening the stainless steel material through cold rolling allows us to achieve various levels of temper, such as quarter-, half- and full hard. The hardness level depends on how much cold work has been done on the steel. Quarter-, half-, and full hard stocks have greater amounts of reduction (sometimes up to 50%). This increases the yield point but decreases the ductility of the steel. Quarter-hard steel can be bent back over itself without breaking, while half-hard can be bent at a 90-degree angle, and full hard can be bent at a 45-degree angle without breaking it. Cold rolled metal is often used in applications where the metal needs to be bent without the risk of breaking.
The different families of stainless steel grade that are often cold rolled are:
The process of cold rolling a metal alloy starts with either sheet metal or strip coil. These materials are placed into large rollers, which compress it down and squeeze it under high pressure just below its ultimate tensile strength. Depending on the amount of compression, different mechanical properties and hardness properties are achieved in the finished product. Through cold reduction, the thickness of the metal can be reduced by processing steel strip through a sequence of tandem rolling mill stands. The rolls on these stands are stacked vertically and powered by huge motors. The motors work hard to apply extreme compression to the metal.
These mills take coils of hot-rolled, pickled products and pass them through, making them thinner. Once the metal has passed through the rolls and has reached its desired thickness, it's done being rolled but it is not quite ready for use. At this point in the process, the metal is still highly cold-worked, and while it is high strength, it can be brittle. It needs to be annealed at a higher temperature to soften the steel so it is less difficult to work with. Once the metal has been annealed, it's easier to use it in many applications, because it's able to be bent and formed.
Another method of cold rolling uses a reversing mill, which passes the strip back and forth between mandrels. This reduces the thickness of the strip during each pass until the desired thickness is reached. Metal can be reduced by between 60 and 80 percent through cold rolling, and then can be used in the creation of consumer goods or for use in other industries.
Though cold rolling is most often used on steel, many alloys and metals can be cold rolled to change their crystalline makeup. When they are rolled at temperatures below their re-crystallization point, permanent defects are caused. These defects reduce the crystals' abilities to move within the structure of the metal, improving both the metal's tensile strength and hardness.
Metals like titanium, aluminum, and nickel alloys, along with stainless steel can all be cold rolled. Though cold rolling metals such as stainless steel coil increases the strength of the metal and its surface finish, it does decrease the ductility. The same applies to metal wire which has been cold drawn or rolled. However, once the metal is annealed, it's ready to be used in multiple ways.
When deep drawing metal, a rolled coil is punched through a hole or die. The punch is used to achieve the desired shape. The die cavity matches the punch but is slightly wider which allows for passage and clearance. The raw material is forced into the die via the compression force. Each draw operation is a separate step, and with each step there is a reduction in diameter, increasing the height or depth of the part. This is done to ensure that, as the metal changes shape, re-crystallization occurs as well. Products made by deep drawing include battery enclosures, implantable medical devices, aerospace and defense components for aircraft.
Extrusion is an important and versatile manufacturing process, though it is still a relatively new metalworking technique. Cold extrusion forces a slug of material through a die at either room temperature or slightly elevated temperature. This produces a product of constant cross-section. Many metals can be extruded, including tin, aluminum alloys, copper, lead, steel, and others.
Metal stamping is another manufacturing process that is ideal for producing metal products where tight tolerances are required. In metal stamping, a flat metal strip coil is converted into a variety of shapes. This complex process includes a few different metal forming techniques, like punching, coining, piercing, blanking, and bending, among others.
Roll forming involves bending a long strip of metal (usually coiled steel) that is passed through sets of rolls, with each performing an incremental part of the bend. The finished product is bent until the desired cross-section profile is reached.
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