Production Technology for Precision Seamless Steel Tubes from the Perspective of Microhardness Changes

The production of precision seamless steel tubes in Železiarne Podbrezová is using hot rolled tubes with multiple cold drawing passes and intermediate annealing. It utilizes intensive plastic deformation during cold drawing, taking full advantage of the microstructural state from a physical point of view. In this paper, optimization of technological processes for cold drawn tubes made from ferritic-pearlitic steel has been elaborated. We use microstructural and substructural analysis, dislocation hardening theory and stress analysis. The subject of this article is the experiment with multiple drawing passes and intermediate annealing for production of precision steel tubes with dimensions of 31.8 x 2.6 mm. The drawing itself consists of 5 processes (also called „runs“) with 7 drawing passes in total. The results presented show strain hardening of the material after drawing along with relaxation mechanism during intermediate annealing. The possibility of utilizing the microhardness values on intensity assessment of these processes is investigated, too.