Hot rolled wire rod - (cold drawing) - spheroidizing (softening) annealing - mechanical dephosphorization - pickling - cold drawing - cold forging - threading - heat treatment - inspection

1. Steel design

In the manufacture of fasteners, the correct selection of fastener materials is an important part, because the performance of fasteners is closely related to its materials. If the material is improperly or incorrectly selected, the performance may not meet the requirements, the service life may be shortened, or even accidents or processing difficulties may occur, and the manufacturing cost will be high. Therefore, the selection of fastener materials is a very important link. Cold heading steel is a steel for fasteners with high interchangeability produced by cold heading forming process. Because it is formed by metal plastic processing at room temperature, each part has a large amount of deformation and a high deformation speed. Therefore, the performance requirements of cold heading steel raw materials are very strict. On the basis of long-term production practice and user research, combined with GB/T78-2001 "Technical Conditions for Cold Heading and Cold Extrusion Steel" GB/T699-1999 "High-Quality Carbon Structural Steel" and the target JISG3507-1991 "Cold Heading" Characteristics of Carbon Steel Wire Rod for Steel, taking the material requirements of grade 8.8 and grade 9.8 bolts and screws as an example, the determination of various chemical elements. If the C content is too high, the cold formability will be reduced; if it is too low, the mechanical properties of the part cannot be met, so it is set at 0.25% - 0.55%. Mn can improve the permeability of steel, but adding too much will strengthen the matrix structure and affect the cold forming performance; when the part is quenched and tempered, it has the tendency to promote the growth of austenite grains, so it should be appropriately improved on the basis of international standards. 0.45 % - 0.80 %. Si can strengthen the ferrite and reduce the cold formability. S.P. is an impurity element, and their presence will cause segregation along the grain boundary, resulting in the embrittlement of the grain boundary and damage to the mechanical properties of the steel. It should be reduced as much as possible. B. The maximum value of boron content is 0.005%, because although boron element can significantly improve the permeability of steel, it will also increase the brittleness of steel. Excessive boron content is very unfavorable for workpieces such as bolts, screws and studs that require good comprehensive mechanical properties.

2. Spheroidizing annealing

When the countersunk head screws and hexagon socket head bolts are produced by the cold heading process, the original structure of the steel will directly affect the forming ability of the cold heading process. In the process of cold heading, the plastic deformation of the local area can reach 60%-80%, so the steel must have good plasticity. When the chemical composition of the steel is constant, the metallographic structure is the key factor to determine the plasticity. It is generally believed that the coarse flaky pearlite is not conducive to cold heading forming, while the fine spherical pearlite can significantly improve the plastic deformation ability of the steel. For medium carbon steel and medium carbon alloy steel with a large amount of high-strength bolts, spheroidizing (softening) annealing is performed before cold heading, so as to obtain uniform and fine spheroidized pearlite to better meet the actual production needs. For the softening annealing of medium carbon steel wire rods, the heating temperature should be kept above and below the critical point of the steel, and the heating temperature should not be too high, otherwise tertiary cementite will precipitate along the grain boundary, resulting in cold heading cracking. The wire rod of medium carbon alloy steel is annealed by isothermal spheroidization. After heating at AC1+ (20-30%), the furnace is cooled to slightly lower than Ar1, the temperature is about 700 degrees Celsius for an isothermal period, and then the furnace is cooled to about 500 degrees Celsius and air-cooled. The metallographic structure of the steel changes from coarse to fine, from flake to spherical, and the cracking rate of cold heading will be greatly reduced. The general area of ​​softening annealing temperature for 35\45\ML35\SWRCH35K steel is 715 - 735 degrees Celsius; while the general area for spheroidizing annealing of SCM435\40Cr\SCR435 steel is 740 - 770 degrees Celsius, and the isothermal temperature is 680 - 700 degrees Celsius.

3. Peeling and removing phosphorus

The process of removing iron oxide plate from cold heading steel wire rod is stripping and dephosphorization. There are two methods: mechanical dephosphorization and chemical pickling. Replacing the chemical pickling process of wire rod with mechanical phosphorus removal not only improves productivity, but also reduces environmental pollution. This phosphorus removal process includes bending method (the round wheel with triangular grooves is commonly used to repeatedly bend the wire rod), spray nine method, etc. The phosphorus removal effect is good, but the residual iron and phosphorus cannot be removed (the removal rate of iron oxide scale is 97%) ), especially when the iron oxide scale is very sticky, therefore, mechanical phosphorus removal is affected by iron scale thickness, structure and stress state. Carbon steel wire rods used for low strength fasteners (less than or equal to 6.8) High-strength bolts (greater than or equal to grade 8.8) use wire rods to remove all iron oxide scales after mechanical dephosphorization, and then go through a chemical pickling process to remove phosphorus. For low carbon steel wire rods, the iron sheets left by mechanical dephosphorization are likely to cause uneven wear of grain draft. When the grain draft hole adheres to the iron sheet when the wire rod rubs against the external temperature, the surface of the wire rod produces longitudinal grain marks. More than 95% are caused by scratches on the surface of the steel wire during the drawing process. Therefore, the mechanical phosphorus removal method is not suitable for high-speed drawing.

4. Pulling

The drawing process has two purposes, one is to modify the size of the raw materials; the other is to obtain basic mechanical properties of the fasteners through deformation and strengthening. For medium carbon steel, medium carbon alloy steel also has another purpose, that is, to make the wire rod. The flaky cementite obtained after controlled cooling is cracked as much as possible during the drawing process to prepare for the subsequent spheroidization (softening) annealing to obtain granular cementite. However, some manufacturers arbitrarily reduce the drawing in order to reduce costs. The excessive reduction rate increases the work hardening tendency of the wire rod, which directly affects the cold heading performance of the wire rod. If the distribution of the reduction ratio of each pass is not appropriate, it will also cause torsional cracks in the wire rod during the drawing process. In addition, if the lubrication is not good during the drawing process, it can also cause regular transverse cracks in the cold drawn wire rod. The tangential direction of the wire rod and the wire drawing die is not concentric at the same time when the wire rod is rolled out of the die, which will cause the wear of the unilateral hole pattern of the wire drawing die to aggravate, make the inner hole out of round, and cause uneven drawing deformation in the circumferential direction of the wire. The roundness of the steel wire is out of tolerance, and the cross-sectional stress of the steel wire is not uniform during the cold heading process, which affects the cold heading pass rate. During the drawing process of the wire rod, the excessive surface reduction ratio will deteriorate the surface quality of the steel wire, while the too low surface reduction ratio is not conducive to the crushing of the flaky cementite, and it is difficult to obtain as much granular cementite as possible. , that is, the spheroidization rate of cementite is low, which is extremely unfavorable to the cold heading performance of the steel wire. For the bar and wire rod produced by the drawing method, the partial surface reduction rate is directly controlled within the range of 10%-15%.

5. Cold forging

Usually, the forming of the bolt head adopts cold heading plastic processing. Compared with the cutting process, the metal fiber (metal wire) is continuous along the shape of the product, and there is no cut in the middle, thus improving the strength of the product, especially the mechanical properties. The cold heading forming process includes cutting and forming, single-station single-click, double-click cold heading and multi-station automatic cold heading. An automatic cold heading machine performs multi-station processes such as stamping, heading forging, extrusion and diameter reduction in several forming dies. The processing characteristics of the original blank used by the single-station or multi-station automatic cold heading machine are determined by the size of the bar with a length of 5-6 meters or the wire rod with a weight of 1900-2000KG, that is, the characteristics of the processing technology. The point is that cold heading does not use pre-cut single blanks, but uses the automatic cold heading machine itself to cut and upset (if necessary) blanks from bars and wire rods. Before extruding the cavity, the blank must be shaped. A blank that meets the technological requirements can be obtained by shaping. Before upsetting, reducing and positive extrusion, the blank does not need to be shaped. After the blank is cut, it is sent to the upsetting and shaping station. This station can improve the quality of the blank, reduce the forming force of the next station by 15-17%, and prolong the life of the mold, and the bolts can be made by multiple reductions. The precision that can be achieved by cold heading is also related to the selection of the forming method and the procedure used. In addition, it also depends on the structural characteristics of the equipment used, the process characteristics and its state, the precision of the tool and die, the life and the degree of wear. For high alloy steel used in cold heading forming and extrusion, the roughness of the working surface of the cemented carbide mold should not be greater than Ra=0.2um. When the roughness of the working surface of this type of mold reaches Ra=0.025-0.050um, it has the highest life.

6. Thread processing

The bolt thread is generally cold worked, so that the thread blank within a certain diameter range passes through the rubbing (rolling) wire plate (die), and the thread is formed by the pressure of the wire plate (rolling die). The plastic streamline of the threaded part is not cut off, the strength is increased, the precision is high, and the quality is uniform, so it is widely used. In order to make the outer diameter of the thread of the final product, the required thread blank diameter is different, because it is limited by factors such as thread accuracy and whether the material is coated or not. Rolling (rubbing) thread is a processing method that uses plastic deformation to form thread teeth. It uses a rolling (screwing plate) die with the same pitch and tooth shape as the thread to be processed, while extruding the cylindrical screw blank, while rotating the screw blank, and finally transferring the tooth shape on the rolling die to the On the screw blank, the thread is formed. The common point of rolling (rubbing) thread processing is that the number of rolling revolutions does not need to be too much. If it is too much, the efficiency will be low, and the surface of the thread teeth will easily cause separation or random buckle. On the contrary, if the number of revolutions is too small, the diameter of the thread is easy to be out of round, and the pressure at the initial stage of rolling increases abnormally, resulting in a shortening of the life of the die. Common defects of rolled threads: cracks or scratches on the surface of the thread part; random buckles; out of roundness of the thread part. If these defects occur in large numbers, they will be discovered during the processing stage. If the number of occurrences is small, the production process does not notice these defects and then circulates to users, causing trouble. Therefore, the key issues of processing conditions should be summarized, and these key factors should be controlled in the production process.

7. Processing

High-strength fasteners must be quenched and tempered according to technical requirements. The purpose of heat treatment and tempering is to improve the comprehensive mechanical properties of fasteners to meet the specified tensile strength value and yield ratio of the product. The heat treatment process has a crucial impact on high-strength fasteners, especially its intrinsic quality. Therefore, in order to produce high-quality high-strength fasteners, advanced heat treatment technology and equipment must be available. Due to the large production volume and low price of high-strength bolts, and the threaded part is a relatively fine and relatively precise structure, the heat treatment equipment is required to have large production capacity, high degree of automation, and good heat treatment quality. Since the 1990s, continuous heat treatment production lines with protective atmosphere have dominated, and the shock bottom type and mesh belt furnaces are especially suitable for heat treatment and tempering of small and medium-sized fasteners. In addition to the good sealing performance of the furnace, the quenching and tempering line also has advanced computer control of atmosphere, temperature and process parameters, equipment failure alarm and display functions. High-strength fasteners are automatically controlled and operated from feeding-cleaning-heating-quenching-cleaning-tempering-coloring to offline, which effectively ensures the quality of heat treatment. The decarburization of the thread will cause the fastener to trip before the resistance required by the mechanical properties is reached, which will cause the failure of the threaded fastener and shorten the service life. Due to the decarburization of the raw material, if the annealing is improper, the decarburized layer of the raw material will be deepened. In the process of quenching and tempering heat treatment, some oxidizing gas is generally brought in from outside the furnace. The rust of the bar wire or the residue on the surface of the wire rod after cold drawing will also decompose after being heated in the furnace, and some oxidizing gases will be generated by the reaction. For example, the surface rust of steel wire, which is composed of iron carbonate and hydroxide, will be decomposed into CO₂ and H₂O after heating, thus aggravating decarburization. Studies have shown that the degree of decarburization of medium carbon alloy steel is more serious than that of carbon steel, and the fastest decarburization temperature is between 700 and 800 degrees Celsius. Because the attachments on the surface of the steel wire decompose and synthesize carbon dioxide and water very quickly under certain conditions, if the furnace gas of the continuous mesh belt furnace is not properly controlled, it will also cause excessive decarburization of the screw. When the high-strength bolt is formed by cold heading, the raw material and the annealed decarburized layer not only still exist, but also are extruded to the top of the thread. For the surface of the fastener that needs to be quenched, the required hardness cannot be obtained. Its mechanical properties (especially strength and wear resistance) decreased. In addition, the surface of the steel wire is decarburized, and the surface layer and the internal structure have different expansion coefficients, and surface cracks may occur during quenching. For this reason, during quenching and heating, the top of the thread should be protected from decarburization, and the fasteners whose raw materials have been decarburized should be properly carbonized, and the advantages of the protective atmosphere in the mesh belt furnace should be adjusted to the original carbon-coated parts. The carbon content is basically the same, so that the decarburized fasteners are slowly restored to the original carbon content. The carbon potential is preferably set at 0.42% - 0.48%. The carbon coating temperature is the same as the quenching heating, and cannot be carried out at high temperatures , so as to avoid coarse grains and affect mechanical properties. The quality problems that may occur in the process of quenching and tempering of fasteners mainly include: insufficient hardness in the quenched state; uneven hardness in the quenched state; excessive quenching deformation; quenching cracking. Such problems in the field are often related to raw materials, quenching heating and quenching cooling. Correctly formulating the heat treatment process and standardizing the production operation process can often avoid such quality accidents.

8. Inspection

In summary, the process factors that affect the quality of high-strength fasteners include steel design, spheroidizing annealing, peeling and dephosphorization, drawing, cold heading, thread processing, heat treatment, etc., and sometimes it is the superposition of various factors. .