Deep-drawable thin-gauge hot strip of steel as a substitution for cold strip

In a conventional production of deep-drawable steel sheets, a hot rolling in austenite and a cold rolling at room temperature together with a subsequent recrystallization annealing are applied to achieve a desired texture in the final cold strip. As a cost saving replacement for this, a thin-gauge hot strip with a required deep-drawability can be employed by applying the ferritic rolling with the finishing shifted down into the temperatures below Ar,. To optimize the process parameters, laboratory tests on an IF steel were carried out by using the hot deformation simulator WUMSI. By the measurements of the texture development as well as by the computing of r-values, the texture formation in a hot strip after ferritic rolling could be optimized achieving a deep-drawability in hot strips comparable to that of a cold strip.