Journal of Materials Processing Technology 170 (2005) 17–23

Effect of hot rolling conditions to produce deep drawing quality

steels for continuous annealing process
G. Erdem a,∗ , Y. Taptik b
a Eregli Iron and Steel Works Co., Quality and Technology Department, Kdz. Eregli, Turkey
b Istanbul Technical University, Chemical and Metallurgical Faculty, Metallurgical and Materials
Engineering Department, 80626 Maslak, Istanbul, Turkey

Received 14 July 2003; received in revised form 15 February 2005; accepted 11 April 2005

Abstract

Most of cold rolled deep drawability steel sheets finds application in areas where forming is critical. Deep drawing sheet steel requires
good mechanical properties and microstructures, as well as sufficient anti-aging characteristics. Therefore, deep drawing steels are produced
by controlling these metallurgical factors and optimizing steelmaking, hot rolling, cold rolling and annealing processes.
This paper explains the effect the microstructure and mechanical properties of hot rolling conditions on continuously annealed sheet
properties in certain chemical composition. Experiments have been conducted to investigate the effect of hot rolling conditions. Consequently,
it became clear that hot rolling conditions play an important role in producing continuous annealed deep drawing quality steels.
© 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Hot rolling condition; Deep drawing steel; Annealing process

1. Introduction 2. Achievement of adequately large grain size to confer a

Cold rolled steel sheet remains the most important mate-
rial for manufacture of numerous products. Cold rolled steel
sheet combining uniformity of mechanical properties and low
levels of surface contamination following the annealing pro-
cess is desired to meet increasingly stringent product quality
requirements. There are two processes for annealing cold
rolled sheet steels, batch annealing and continuous annealing
[1]. Continuous annealing process for cold rolled steel sheets
greatly increases the productivity and improves the unifor-
mity of products. Various kinds of new continuous annealing
processes have been developed to produce steel sheet having
the same quality as in the batch-annealed product. However,
in order for continuously annealed steel to be competitive
with the batch-annealed product, the structure must be opti-
mized with regard to three important factors [2]:
1. Development of strong (1 1 1) annealing texture compo-
nents to enhance deep drawability.
∗ Corresponding author.
low yield stress and good work hardening characteristics.
3. Control of secondary carbide precipitation to control
aging tendency and improve ductility.
All these factors are being influenced in all stages from steel-
making, hot rolling, cold rolling and final annealing. In order
to have good mechanical properties and microstructure, each
production stage has to be optimized.
It is clear that continuous annealing process is very sensi-
tive to impurity levels in steel. Therefore, it is very important
to adjust the steel composition of continuous annealed Al-
killed steel. Also, hot rolling conditions are very effective
for the improvement of microstructure and mechanical prop-
erties. Softening and improvement in deep drawability are
attributed to carbide coarsening and ferrite grain growth in
hot band. It has been clarified that coiling hot bands at a high
temperature is effective for the improvement in deep drawa-
bility of continuous annealed sheet steels [3]. Therefore, high
temperature coiled hot bands have been cold rolled in tandem
mill and annealed in continuous annealing line. The normal
procedure for compensating heat losses is to control the water

0924-0136/$ – see front matter © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2005.04.097
18 G. Erdem, Y. Taptik / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 170 (2005) 17–23

Table 1 to the variation in finishing temperatures obtained. Roughing

The chemical analysis of the steels used (wt%) was carried out on 2 Hi (one pass) and 4 Hi reversing rougher
Trial no. C% Mn% P% S% Si% Al% N% O% (five passes). The exit temperature after rougher was about
I 0.035 0.250 0.012 0.010 0.025 0.045 0.0078 0.0058 1000–1100 ◦ C. The seven-stand finishing mill was used for
II the further hot rolling process. The mill is equipped with a
A 0.025 0.250 0.014 0.016 0.010 0.045 0.0070 0.0050 coil box which allows to have homogeneous temperatures
B 0.040 0.270 0.017 0.010 0.011 0.059 0.0073 0.0035 throughout the coil and prevents heat losses from head and
III tail of the strip [3]. The temperature difference between the
A 0.040 0.240 0.012 0.009 0.010 0.059 0.0058 0.0045 edges and center are reduced with the coil box. The schematic
B 0.050 0.280 0.014 0.014 0.013 0.049 0.0059 0.0081 illustration of experimental procedure is shown in Fig. 1.
C 0.050 0.320 0.012 0.010 0.014 0.055 0.0069 0.0062 After hot rolling both surfaces of steels were inspected
D 0.025 0.250 0.014 0.016 0.010 0.045 0.0059 0.0060
in recoiling line. All materials were hot rolled to 2.80 mm
IV thickness in the same reduction schedule and specimens
A 0.050 0.240 0.010 0.010 0.015 0.064 0.0070 0.0060
were taken from hot rolled coils at 10, 20, 40 and 80 m
B 0.040 0.290 0.017 0.017 0.014 0.061 0.0073 0.0063
from the head end of the coil, middle of the coil and at
10, 20, 40 and 80 m of tail end from the coil in the recoil-
cooling on the run-out table so that the ends of the strip are ing line. Hot rolled specimens based on Japan International
kept hotter than middle [4]. Standard (JIS—width 50 mm; length 50 mm) were machined
In the present study, the effect of hot rolling conditions on for tensile testing to determine the yield stress (YS) at 0.2%
deep drawing Al-killed steels was investigated. The effects elongation, tensile strength (TS) and elongation (El). Ferrite
of mechanical properties and microstructure of these steels grain size and carbide morphology of hot rolled specimens
were determined. were determined. The tensile properties were determined
by SATEC Systems (UTM type, 55 tonnes, MII-120 HVL
Model) and optical metallography was conducted in LECO
2. Materials and experimental procedures 2001 Image Analyzing System.

The materials used in this investigation were taken from

continuously cast slabs. Table 1 shows the chemical analysis
of the materials used in this study. The deep drawing qual-
ity Al-killed steel slabs were rolled at hot strip mill No. 2 at
Erdemir. These slabs with the thickness of 200 mm and width
of 940–1225 mm and length of 12,000 mm were heated to
1100 and 1200 ◦ C in slab reheating furnace (slab exit temper-
ature). The difference in slab reheating temperature is related
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Microstructural observation
The effects of finishing and coiling temperatures on the
microstructure in the hot band sheet steel are shown in Fig. 2.
In order to get the data for microstructure, 63 microstructures

Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of the experimental procedure.

 G. Erdem, Y. Taptik / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 170 (2005) 17–23
Fig. 2. Effects of finishing and coiling temperatures on the microstructure of the hot band sheet steel.
were analyzed for each trial. The microstructures shown in
Fig. 2 are the representative microstructures of trials. As
expected [5,6], the change in the grain size is dependent on
finishing temperature and, on the other hand, the morphology
of cementite is strongly dependent on coiling temperature.
The ferrite grain size decreases with decreasing finishing
temperature and mixed grain structure is obtained when hot
rolling was conducted at a temperature below Ar3 [7,8].
Trial I has a relatively coarse grain structure and resulted
in mixed grain sizes. When the hot bands were rolled
at 930 ◦ C (finishing temperature), large sizes on ferrite
grain were observed. The flaky cementite particles were
obtained along grain boundaries with increasing coiling
temperature. On the other hand, when hot bands were coiled
at 730 ◦ C, very coarse cementite particles were observed.
Trial IV (B) has coarse cementite particles and coarse grain
structure due to high finishing and coiling temperatures.
This diagram also shows the relation between change in
microstructure of hot rolled sheet steel and the rolling process
parameters.
Effects of finishing and coiling temperatures for the fer-
rite grain and carbide size are shown in Figs. 3 and 4. For
plotting the grain size and carbide index, a mean grain size
and carbide index were calculated. It can be seen in Fig. 2
19
that ferrite ASTM No. decreases with increasing finishing and
coiling temperatures. In Fig. 3, Carbide Index No.1 decreases
with increasing finishing and coiling temperatures. Carbide
index number is similar to ferrite ASTM number. Carbide
size increases with decreasing index number.
According to 700 ◦ C annealing temperature in CAL pro-
cess, hot band microstructure with high coiling temperature
and finishing temperature (Trial IV, B) resulted in the final
annealed microstructure shown in Fig. 5. After hot rolling
both surfaces of steels were inspected in recoiling line and
then they were pickled in HCl acid (18%, 65 ◦ C, 240 m/min)
in order to remove the surface oxides. Because of the high
coiling temperature for these steels, tension leveller was used
before the pickling to ensure full-scale removal. The coils
were rolled to a final gauge of 0.80 mm on four-stand tandem
cold rolling mill and the amount of deformation in cold rolling
process is 71%. It can be seen that sufficient recrystalliza-
tion is completed in case of these process conditions. Finally,
the full hard materials were annealed in continuous anneal-
ing line after electrolytic cleaning process. Fig. 1 shows the
schematic illustration of experimental procedure.
1 It is based on NKK CAL Process Knowhow Book, January 1995.
20 G. Erdem, Y. Taptik / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 170 (2005) 17–23

Fig. 4. Effect of finishing temperature and coiling temperature on carbide

Fig. 3. Effect of finishing temperature and coiling temperature on ferrite
grain size.
3.2. Mechanical properties
The mechanical properties of steels after rolling in the hot
roll mill are given in Fig. 6. In this figure, it can be concluded
that the decrease in finishing temperature causes an increase
in yield strength and tensile strength but, results in a decrease
in elongation. The increase in the coiling temperature causes
the decrease in yield strength and tensile strength but results
in the increase in elongation.
size.
The requirement for high coiling temperature of hot rolled
strip means that special handling is necessary to counteract
heat losses from the inner and outer end. Excessive cooling
leads to undesirable carbide morphologies and finely dis-
persed aluminium nitride precipitation which degrades the
formability and heterogeneous mechanical properties in the
final product.
Fig. 7 shows the application of high finishing and coil-
ing temperature with no water cooling 80 m from head and
tail ends of the coil. The data in Fig. 7 are corresponding to
the average values of the coils used in Fig. 6. Heat losses

Fig. 5. Annealed microstructure of hot band with high coiling and finishing temperature: (a) ferrite grain size (100×) and (b) carbide size (500×).
 G. Erdem, Y. Taptik / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 170 (2005) 17–23 21

Fig. 6. The effect of finishing temperature for (a) yield strength, (b) tensile strength and (c) elongation. The effect of coiling temperature for (d) yield strength,
(e) tensile strength and (f) elongation.

are severe at the head and tail end of the coil because of heat
radiation. This excessive cooling leads to undesirable carbide
morphologies and finely dispersed aluminium nitride precip-
itation which degrades the formability of the final product
at these positions [9]. By applying high finishing and coil-
ing temperature with no water, the coarsening of carbide and
the growth of ferrite grain were achieved. The large grain
size of hot band aids the grain growth after cold rolling and
annealing. The coarsening of carbide was found to contribute
greatly to the grain growth by weakening the dragging effect
of the precipitates.
Although the middle of the coil has of a lower tempera-
ture than the head or tail of the coil, it is possible to uniform
properties when the coil was cooled because heat losses are
severe at the head and tail of coil. The mechanical tests were
performed after the coil was cooled. The temperature in Fig. 6
22 G. Erdem, Y. Taptik / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 170 (2005) 17–23

Fig. 7. The change of yield strength (a and d), tensile strength (b and e) and elongation, (c and f) depending on finishing and coiling temperature for whole coil
length. (O) Middle of coil, (B) head of coil and (S) tail of coil.

correspond to the average values is used for obtaining Fig. 7.
Therefore, uniform mechanical properties for the whole coil
length were observed as seen in Fig. 7. Besides, the tempera-
ture difference between the edges and center was reduced to
10–20 ◦ C from 40 to 50 ◦ C with coil box.
Although mechanical properties of continuously annealed
products are largely affected by a heating temperature, the
mechanical properties of continuously annealed cold rolled
low carbon Al-killed steel sheets which are finished and
coiled at high temperature in hot rolling lie within range of
210–230 N/mm2 for yield strength, 310–330 N/mm2 for ten-
sile strength, 45–46% for elongation and 1.4–1.6 for r mean
value at 700 ◦ C constant heating temperature. Therefore,
mechanical properties with low yield and tensile strength, and
high r mean value and elongation for continuously annealed
steel are obtained.
 G. Erdem, Y. Taptik / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 170 (2005) 17–23
4. Conclusion
Using deep drawing 0.025–0.050% C Al-killed steels, the
effects of hot rolling conditions on the mechanical properties
and microstructure were investigated. The following results
have been obtained:
(1) Hot rolled sheet steels for continuous annealing process
with excellent formability can be produced a high coil-
ing and finishing temperatures. Large ferrite grain sizes
and coarse cementite particles were obtained with 930 ◦ C
finishing temperature and 730 ◦ C coiling temperature.
(2) The effect of finishing temperature and coiling tempera-
ture on hot rolled sheet steels microstructure in order to
produce hot rolled sheet steels for continuous annealing
process was developed.
(3) A uniform mechanical property and microstructure
throughout the coil for hot rolled material were achieved.
(4) It is shown that with increasing finishing and coiling tem-
perature, the yield strength and tensile strength decrease
but elongation increases for hot rolled materials.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the Eregli Iron and Steel
Works for permission to study the present work and providing
the materials.
23
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