An innovative method for producing balls from scrap rail heads

The paper describes an innovative technological solution for producing balls from scrap rail heads. The proposed method consists in performing the following operations: the side pressing of a rail head to increase shape compactness, a process for forming a cylindrical rod by cross-wedge rolling (CWR), a CWR process for producing balls that have a diameter which is by 35% larger than that of the billet, quenching of the produced balls. Tools for the above manufacturing operations are designed, and numerical simulations are performed to verify whether the assumptions of the proposed technique are correct. A flat-wedge reversing mill is designed and constructed that enables performing the two abovementioned rolling operations without idle running, which makes the design innovative on a global scale. The implementation of the proposed method would enable producing balls for grinding media used in ball mills.