Experience of Hot Pack Rolling Application for Production of Specific Steels or Creep Resistant Alloys

Under the current conditions, the consumption of special purpose alloys or steels is growing. This is due to the development of the import substitution program. It should be noted, that such materials possess specific deformation behavior, which requires providing particular conditions of a hot rolling process. One of the characteristics of the deformation behavior is the narrow thermal plastic range. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a hot rolling in several stages, which include interchange of heating and rolling processes. For the purpose to resolve the issue, the experience of the multilayer hot rolling of plates has been investigated where all advantages of this way of a hot rolling process were used. Based on the method of the multilayer hot rolling, the pack rolling has been developed which gives the possibility of production of hot-rolled plates from special purpose alloys or steels.

The Effects of Hot-Pack Coating Materials on the Pack Rolling Process and Microstructural Characteristics during Ti-46Al-8Nb Sheet Fabrication

The effects of the package materials on the hot workability and stress-strain characteristics of high-Nb TiAl alloy with a nominal composition of Ti-46Al-8Nb (in at.%) were systematically studied via “sandwich structure” hot compression. TiAl sheet fabrication was conducted by hot pack rolling, and the microstructural characteristics and deformation mechanisms were investigated. Based on the analysis of compressed samples and stress-strain curves, the stainless steel/TiAl structure showed better deformation compatibility with homogeneous deformation and decreasing resistance. However, severe interfacial reactions were inevitable. Meanwhile, for the titanium alloy/TiAl structure, few interfacial reactions happened, but wavy deformation and high resistance complicated the compression process. Finally, a package structure with an outer stainless steel isolation layer and inner titanium alloy was determined for the pack rolling process. A TiAl sheet with no crack defects was obtained with 80% reduction. The pack-rolled TiAl sheet took on alternate microstructure of the grain-boundary Al-enriched ribbons and elongated lamellar colonies ribbons. The grain-boundary recrystallized α2 phase, lumpy γ phase, and massive α2/γ lamellae could be observed, which led to the scatter microstructure. The microstructural characteristics mainly resulted from the solute segregations of as-cast Ti-46Al-8Nb alloys, which triggered the local flow softening and deformation incompatibility during hot pack rolling.

Study on the pack rolling process factor of Ti-6Al-4V alloy

Pack rolling method is preferred to conventional rolling method to process thin sheets or foils out of titanium alloys because of their relatively narrow processing window and possible surface contamination during the elevated temperature processing. In this paper, the core sheets of 5mm thick with equiaxed alpha + transformed beta structure were encapsulated in mild steel cover material and hot rolled in a four high reversing hot rolling mill. The following results were obtained; The optimal pack assembly condition and pack rolling process factor were produced. The effect that the difference in deformation resistance of cover material and core material in pack rolling has been considered. The S45C mild steel is the most suitable for the cover material. The cover material is subjected to the same rolling process as the core material when the initial core and total thickness ratio is 0.3. The reduction in pack rolling should be selected in the range of 20% to 25% to produce flat sheet. Tensile properties of the pack rolled sheet are isotropic in both RD and TD rolling direction which meet the requirements of the standard AMS4911.

Microstructure-Property Relationships in Cold Rollable, High-Strength α/β Alloys

For decades Ti-6Al-4V has been the workhorse alloy for aerospace sheet applications due to its good balance of properties and the known ability to hot roll it with relative ease. Sheet of Ti-6Al-4V is made by hot pack rolling, which is a costly and time consuming process, due to the alloy having insufficient room-temperature workability to support significant cold reduction or forming. Consequentially, Ti-6Al-4V is not typically offered in foil gauges, since the direct product of hot pack rolling contains an undesirable surface finish and insufficient gauge control. Hot pack rolling also limits the maximum sheet size and annual capacity. As a world leader in advanced sheet alloys of titanium, nickel, cobalt, and specialty stainless steels, ATI is developing new titanium alloys with improved strength compared to Ti-6Al-4V that take advantage of a recent understanding of cold workability in high-strength alpha-beta titanium. These α+β alloys exceed Ti-6Al-4V strength while being highly cold formable. Cold rolling via coil processing also enables longer lengths of sheet with significantly improved gauge control and surface finish. Results from pilot scale ingots will be presented upon, including final properties of these unique alloys and microstructure-property correlations developed through modelling.