Journal of Materials Processing Technology 84 (1998) 175 – 180

Effects of cold-rolling on the cold forging of solid polymer

Shin-ichi Matsuoka *
Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Toyama Prefectural Uni6ersity, Kosugi-machi, Toyama 939 -0398, Japan

Received 7 June 1997

Abstract

Cold-forged products obtained from preliminarily-rolled rods of HDPE, PP, POM, ABS and PVC were studied for their elastic
and thermal recovery, and secular change of dimension over time. The optimum amount of reduction of area in rolling, and the
effect of heat treatment, were made clear in order to attain the best qualities of cold-forged products. The cold-forged products
obtained from preliminary-rolled rod were found to have extremely good dimensional stability when subjected to heat treatment
in a boiling-water bath. This cold-forging process was applied to make small machine parts such as knobs, good results being
obtained. © 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Cold-rolling; Cold-forged products; Solid polymer

1. Introduction precision of the rolled rods. Based on these results,

It is already known that it is possible to perform cold
and plastic working with many thermoplastics, and this
technique is partly at the practical stage where it is used
for deep drawing. However, this widespread introduc-
tion of the cold plastic working of polymeric materials
has been hampered by the amount of elastic recovery
and the amount of heat recovery immediately after
processing, and by the dimensions of the processed
products changing with the elapse of time. Thus to
provide a measure to overcome these problems, a
method of applying preformed rods, obtained by per-
forming preliminary cold extrusion or cold drawing, as
cold forging material to increase the dimensional preci-
sion of the products has been proposed [1,2]. If in this
way, it is possible to discover a method of obtaining
material that is stronger and more precise than existing
plastic material, the range of fields in which plastics can
be utilised is certain to expand.
This study involved the experimental cold rolling of
rods of thermoplastics of various kinds, followed by a
study of the relationship of the internal structure of the
material with the effects of reduction in area, for exam-
ple, of the process on the mechanical strength or shape
* Tel: + 81 766 567500; +81 766 568029; e-mail: matsuoka@pu-
toyama.ac.jp
uniaxial compression testing was preformed on the
preformed rods produced by the rolling to study their
elastic-recovery properties and dimensional changes
with the elapse of time, etc., in this way the optimum
processing conditions for cold-forged material being
found
2. Experimental method and material
Fig. 1 is a flow chart of the manufacturing process
used to make cold forged products with preformed
material produced by the rolling of a lump of plastic. It
shows how a required product is made by performing
compression and the forging under cold conditions of
materials prepared by the cold rolling of materials of
various kinds (referred to below as preformed material).
Seven kinds of caliber roll were used for this study,
being shown in Fig. 2. In a diamond–square combina-
tion, they were used ultimately to roll rods to a diame-
ter of about 14 mm. The surface roughness of the
rollers was between 20 and 50 mm, the speed of rota-
tions was 13 rpm, and they were rotated 90° to trans-
form the diamond shape into a caliber roll shape. The
preformed material prepared by cold rolling was ma-
chined to an external diameter of 12 mm, and using this
as a uniaxial compression test piece, the effects of the

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176 S.-i. Matsuoka / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 84 (1998) 175–180
Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of the manufacturing processes through to the cold forging of a preliminary-rolled solid polymer.
rolling, or in other words, of the elongating, were
studied.
The thermoplastic materials used for the testing in-
cluded four kinds of crystalline material and two
kinds of non-crystalline material, as described in
Table 1. A wide-angle X-ray diffractor (output 40 kV,
25 mA, wavelength l =1.541 nm) was used to ana-
lyze the internal structures of the rolled rods and of
the forged products, and a polarization microscope
was used to investigate the changes in their
spherulites.
3. Elastic recovery and the precision of the rolled rod
Fig. 3 shows an example of a measurement of the
elastic recovery rate after the rolling of the various
materials. In the case of all materials, as the true
reduction of area increased, the dimension recovery
rate (the top-to-bottom direction) also increased, and
up to the point where the true reduction of the area
Fig. 2. Shapes and dimensions of the tools for cold rolling (dimen-
sions in mm)
reached about 50%, the percentage appeared to be
large. Although the dimensional recovery rate results
in this figure include only the top-to-bottom results,
the recovery rate in the direction rotated by 90° (the
oval direction) was found to be smaller.
These results demonstrate that for the normal
rolling of rods, the most important factor is the de-
sign of the shape of the caliber roll, and that reduc-
ing the number of shapes of the caliber roll improves
the rolling efficiency. However, it is assumed that
rolling at an extremely large reduction of area, or in
other words, forcing a large deformation at one time,
will break the product being processed, and even infl-
ict damage to the rolling machine or to the roller.
Fig. 4 shows an example of rolled material with a
defective shape. If high-density PE is used as the roll
material so that a large reduction of area is achieved,
a cavity appears at the center of the rolled rods, Fig.
4a, or rupture openings form on the bottom of the
material, Fig. 4b. Occasionally the material is pushed
out of the caliber roll to form ears. When the mate-
rial does not fill the caliber roll, on the other hand, it
must be handled carefully to prevent defects appear-
ing in the shape and dimensions or in the quality of
the material. Also, there is a suitable number of
passes that must be performed during rolling, so for
this testing, rolling was performed several times.
Table 1
Polymeric materials used for cold-forging tests
Materials Maker Grade
High density polyethylene (HDPE) MITSUBISHI JX20
Yuka
Polypropylene (PP) MITSUBISHI MA4
Yuka
Polyoxymethylene (POM) Polyplastics M90
Polyamide (Nylon) (Ny 6) Toray REONA
Acrylonitrile – butadiene – styrene MITSUI Toatsu R-5100
(ABS)
Poly vinyl chloride (PVC) Nihon Zeon 103EP-8
 S.-i. Matsuoka / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 84 (1998) 175–180
Fig. 3. Relationship between the elastic recovery, Er, and the reduc-
tion in area, R, in the cold rolling of solid polymer.
4. Tensile strength of the rolled rods
Fig. 5 is an example of a study of the relationship of
the tensile strength with the reduction of area in rolling
for rolled rods of various kinds. It shows that as the
true reduction in area of all materials increases their
tensile strength also increases. The figure also shows
that where the reduction of area is close to 70%, the
tensile strength is greater than that of the virgin rods by
from about 10% (PE) to 50% (POM). Also, Fig. 6 is a
comparison of the tensile stress – extension curves ob-
tained from tensile testing of the virgin rod PP and
PVC and the rolled rod PP and PVC. It shows that the
yield stress of the rolled rods is much greater than that
of the virgin rods, and that the greater is the reduction
of area in rolling, the greater is this difference in yield
stress, but inversely, the extension decreases. The same
is true of the other materials.
5. Compressive flow stress of the rolled rods
Because the simplest form of forging processing is
uniaxial compression, it is easy to judge the cold-forg-
ing properties of various kinds of material based on
Fig. 4. Example of cleft surfaces of cold-rolled rods: (a) an internal
vacancy (cavity); and (b) a rupture opening
177
Fig. 5. Relationship between the reduction in area, R, and the tensile
strength, sB, of cold-rolled products.
cold uniaxial compression testing. Fig. 7a and b are
examples of compressive stress–strain curves from the
uniaxial compression of POM and PVC. They show
that in all cases, the compressive flow stress of the
rolled rods is much smaller than that of the virgin rods,
which suggest that compressive processing can be per-
formed easily, and reveals that the greater is the reduc-
tion of area in rolling, the greater is the difference. The
study also shows that if graphite grease is used on the
face where pressure is applied, the apparent yield stress
and compressive flow stress are somewhat smaller than
in the case where this is grease is not applied, which
indicates that when rolled rods (preliminary-rolled
rods) are used as the cold forging material, it is possible
to sharply reduce the elastic recovery after compression
and that it can be counted on to improve the cold-forg-
ing process properties and the dimensional precision of
the manufactured product [3].
Fig. 6. Load – extension curves in tensile tests of cold-rolled products
of PR and PVC.
178 S.-i. Matsuoka / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 84 (1998) 175–180

Fig. 8. Effects of the reduction in area on the elastic recovery in the

compression of preliminarily-rolled rods of PE, PP, ABS and PVC.
(nominal compressive strain: 0.5)

sive strain is small (0.3) in virgin rods and those with a

reduction in area of 30%, the elastic recovery is also
Fig. 7. Nominal compressive stress–strain curves of virgin and pre-
liminarily-rolled rods of: (a) POM-Co; and (b) PVC. small but, conversely, when the compressive strain is
boosted to 0.5 and to 0.7, the elastic recovery also
6. Elastic recovery increases. In cases where the reduction of area is 70%,
as the compressive strain increases, the elastic recovery
In order to verify the effects of the compression
workability described above, the elastic-recovery prop-
erties of the processed products were studied. Fig. 8
presents an example of the comparison of the elastic
recovery at various reductions in area of the thickness
and diameter when a compressive strain of 0.5 is ap-
plied in the height direction, using cylindrical specimens
of the various materials. A reduction in area of zero in
the figure signifies rods that have not been rolled. The
comparison shows that for all categories of material,
the elastic recovery of the preliminary rods that had
been rolled was smaller than that of the virgin rod that
had not been rolled.
Fig. 9 shows the results of a study of the effect of the
degree preformation on the elastic recovery from com-
pressive strains of 0.3, 0.5 and 0.7 in the case of high Fig. 9. Effects of the reduction in area on the elastic recovery in the
density PE. This figure shows that when the compres- compression of preliminarily-rolled HDPE rod.
 S.-i. Matsuoka / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 84 (1998) 175–180 179

Fig. 10. Polarizing micrographs showing the internal structure of cold-forged PP.

decreases but, conversely, the elastic recovery is large
when the compressive strain is small (0.3). This is also
true for other materials.
7. Internal structure and spherulite observations
Fig. 10 shows a polarization microscope observation
of the degree of spherulite deformation caused by the
rolling of PP. The observation did not reveal the direc-
tional properties of the spherulites in the virgin rods
(rolling strain of 0%), but it did reveal that in the case
of the rolled rods, as the reduction of area increases,
substantial elongation deformation occurs in the rolling
direction. Also, the performance of uniaxial compres-
sion (a compressive strain of 0.5) on the preformed rods
resulted in the almost complete recovery of the exten-
sion strain caused by the previous process. It was
confirmed that even when heat treatment in a boiling-
water bath (treatment time: 10 min) was performed on
the product after uniaxial compression, little deforma-
tion of the spherulites occurred. The above results
demonstrate that by appropriately selecting the reduc-
tion of area in rolling, or other words, the amount of
preforming, it is possible to sharply cut the elastic
recovery after compressive processing for both the
180 S.-i. Matsuoka / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 84 (1998) 175–180
Fig. 11. Examples of cold-forged products (a knob) of PP, PE, ABS
and PVC.
thickness and the diameter, within the ranges I and II
in Fig. 9 for example.
8. Example of cold forgings
Fig. 11 is an example of a cold-forged knob that was
tested. The dimensions and shape conform more closely
to the metal mold and the product shape is better when
a rod preformed by rolling was used to make the
product than when a virgin rod was used. The figure
also shows that when ABS or PVC were tested, there
were cracks at the base part. These non-crystalline
materials were, depending on the shape, difficult to cold
forge. In contrast, the crystalline materials are suited
for ordinary cold forging, and it is possible to obtain
forged products with little elastic recovery and with
superior dimensional provisions, particularly when us-
ing POM.
9. Conclusions
The results of the trial rolling of various thermoplas-
tic rods reveals that the reduction of area during rolling
clearly influences the mechanical properties and macro-
scopic internal structure of the rolled rods. The study
has also verified that the preformed rods obtained by
rolling are superior cold-forging materials, and has, to
a certain degree, also clarified the conditions which
maximize the benefits of its properties. The results are
summarized as follows: (1) As the reduction of area
caused by the rolling increases, the spherulites are
substantially elongated in the rolling direction, and at
the same time, the tensile strength of the rolled rods
increases. (2) When cold rolling, if a suitable reduction
of area and number of passes are not selected, cracks
and voids form on the surface and inside the rolled rods
and, in some cases, the material ruptures. (3) Rolled
rods have a smaller compression flow stress than the
virgin rods, which means that they are suitable for use
as cold-forging material. (4) Because the preliminarily
rods made by cold rolling experience elongation in the
rolling direction, the rods are compressed in the same
direction and recover from the deformation during later
compression or forging, which means that the strain of
the forged product is, overall, smaller and its dimen-
sional precision is improved. (5) By choosing the most
suitable reduction of area for the cold rolling to create
the preliminarily-rolled rod, the elastic recovery and
dimensional changes with the elapse of time of the
compression product made using this rod will both be
extremely small.
References
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[2] T. Maeda, S. Matsuoka, J. Jpn. Soc. Technol. 22 (244) (1981)
467.
[3] S. Matsuoka, J. Jpn. Soc. Plast. Technol. 40 (12) (1994) 74.