Surface Quality and Mechanical Properties in Drawn Stainless Steel Profile Wires Caused by Process Parameters

Thin profile wires made of stainless steels are widely used for production of industrial screens used for filtration and separation processes. Industrial screens made of resistance spot welded thin profile wires are used e.g. in baskets for centrifuges or filtration screens and find a wide range of applications in various branches of the industry (mining, food and sugar industry, paper industry, wastewater treatment, oil and gas and many more). Regardless of the application, increased durability and surface quality of the screens is of paramount importance. Improvement of the longevity of manufactured items, process efficiency and environmental performance can be achieved only when interactions between initial wire rod quality and its susceptibility to metal forming operations are fully understood. Due to the complexity of the manufacturing process of industrial screens (precise and small gaps, narrow ranges of dimensional tolerances), forming of thin, so-called precision profiled wire is difficult. The influence of the charge, i.e. wire rod, parameters of the wire drawing / rolling process play a key role in obtaining semi-finished products characterized by high strength, low surface roughness and a low level of residual stresses. The paper discusses the influence of the initial state of wire rod and deformation parameters on the quality of thin austenitic and lean duplex steel profile wires as well as the possibility of replacing austenitic wires by lean duplex wires and their possible benefits.