Steel Profiling

Bekaert uses cold-rolling to create shaped steel wire. Our cold-rolling method involves using the best steel and following major global standards such as those set by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). Cold-rolling for steel profiling promotes excellent surface quality, strength and precision.

Instead of using hot-rolling, cold-rolling uses ambient temperatures to achieve higher strength and hardness. This process also changes the steel's dimensions — it begins with a steel rod, which becomes elongated as it passes through a series of stands. Cold-rolling combined with heat treating the steel profile allows Bekaert to achieve your specific material requirements.

Cold-rolling for profiled wire offers several advantages. Cold-rolling produces steel that matches your specifications more precisely than other methods, down to tolerances of a thousandth of an inch. Plus, it improves the steel's performance and physical properties.

Cold-rolling can also reduce scrap material and tooling costs over other hot-rolling processes.

Profiling (roll forming) is a plastic deformation manufacturing process that is applied to sheet metal. The formation of the above is usually defined by straight, parallel and longitudinal folding lines, using rolls as tools that have the outline of the profile that is sought, all without modifying (or minimally) the thickness of the material.

Forming is gradual and develops at different stations located successively. The different rolls are mounted inside such stations, with the most usual configurations being those that have an upper and lower axis mounted at each stage. With each station, the geometry of the sheet progressively approaches that of the final section. In addition, the material is moving in a longitudinal direction thanks to the movement that the rolls themselves transmit by friction, since all or some of them are driven. The stations are mounted on a roll forming machine, which provides the rolls with the physical support and the turning power that forms the profile

The typical speeds the sheet moves forward at are between 10 and 60 m/min, with the latter able to reach up to 180 m/min. Currently, the range of sheet thicknesses at which the process is applicable ranges from 0.1 to 20 mm.

This speed means that profiling is currently one of the manufacturing processes which is most used in the transformation of sheet metal products, being ideal in high series for long pieces with a constant cross section.

Koniker has been working on the development of new capacities for the profiling process, having carried out research on:

• Flexible profiling
• Torque control of the stations for assisted setting.
• Simulation of the process for defining capabilities: relative to structure and power.
• …

If you are interested, our specialists in profiling processes can help you improve the behaviour of your current facilities, develop new profiles as well as train your technicians so that productivity improves and better control of the process window is gained, which ensures quality.