Simulation of the rolling wear of work roll surface asperities during strip cold rolling by discrete element method

Based on the fact that the wear volume of rolls in cold rolling is caused only by the wear of the asperities in a micron or submicron magnitude, a discontinued mechanism is presented, in which wear is caused by the shedding mass of particles in a smaller scale. A model based on discrete element method (EDM) is established within a localized area of work roll surface, to simulate the mass shedding process of asperities and the laws of wear of work rolls. Aiming at the real surface topography of work rolls, which is created by electrical discharge texturing machines to control the microscopic surface quality of strip, several major shapes of asperities are abstracted used in the model, to study the different wear behavior and wear resistance of different work roll surfaces with different shaped asperities, under the same rolling condition. The simulating result shows great accordance with the wear laws of asperities of work roll surfaces in industry production. It also shows that, discrete element method can be a valued method which worthies concerns and developments to simulate the microscopic wear of asperities of work roll surface. © 2016 Journal of Mechanical Engineering.