Journal of Materials Processing Technology 119 (2001) 122126

Cold-roll forming of small-diameter pipes with pre-notches

Hisaki Wataria,*, Hiroshi Onab
a

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Oyama National College of Technology, Nakakuki 771, Oyama, Tochigi 323-0806, Japan
b
Takushoku University, Tate-machi 815-1, Hachiouji, Tokyo 193-0944, Japan

Abstract
Small steel pipes with 4.0 mm diameters have been formed from pre-notched sheet plates using a cold-roll forming machine. Smalldiameter pipes or tubes in great variety have been widely used in electronics, medical instrumentation, and automotive and aircraft
industries. It is now commonly recognized that improvements in quality and productivity of the products have been the main concern in
industries. This paper deals with a method of manufacturing small-diameter steel pipes with pre-notches by applying the process of coldroll forming. In order to prevent shape defects that occur during the formation, the accuracy of the formed small pipes was examined in
terms of the dimensions of the pre-notch. To clarify the mechanism causing the shape defects, the relationship between roll-pass schedules
and the accuracy of the products was investigated. # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Cold-roll forming; Pre-notch; Small-diameter pipe

1. Introduction
In the process of cold-roll forming, a sheet or strip of
metal is continuously and progressively formed into a
desired cross sectional prole by feeding it through a series
of pairs of rotary forming rolls. This process is well known
for its effectiveness in the mass production of relatively long
sheet metal products with constant cross-section. In recent
years, many varieties of small-diameter pipes or tubes have
been widely used in electronics, medical instrumentation,
automotive and aircraft industries. Generally, however, these
small-diameter pipes or tubes have been manufactured by
drawing or bending processes. Moreover, further manufacturing operations such as notching, aring, round ending,
rolled groove and reducing or expanding are necessary for
producing the size and shape required. Under these circumstances, the need to develop a simpler and more economical
way of manufacturing small-diameter pipes or tubes has
been considerably increased. Improving the quality of products and increasing the productivity have been the main
focus besides lowering production costs [1,2].
The authors, therefore, have investigated the manufacturing method of small-diameter pipes with pre-notches by
applying the process of cold-roll forming. In this study, an
experimental approach was conducted to examine the effects

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: 81-285-21-0309; fax: 81-285-21-0319.
E-mail address: watari@oyama-ct.ac.jp (H. Watari).

of various forming conditions on pre-notched steel pipes of

4.0 mm diameter. On the whole, in order to gain a stable
forming condition in manufacturing such small products and
to produce the size and shape required, it has also been said
that it is important to maintain the accuracy of the products
before the welding process [35]. For this reason, this paper
rst describes the limit of forming pre-notched small pipes
under various conditions. Second, the relationship between
shape defects (roundness and bend in the vertical plane) and
forming conditions is discussed to clarify the mechanism
causing shape defects that occur during the formation.
Finally, an appropriate condition for forming small pipes
with pre-notches by the process of cold-roll forming is
proposed.
2. Experimental procedures
2.1. Formed section and roll-pass schedules
Steel pipes of 4.0 mm outer diameter with simple square
notches were formed by a tandem cold-roll forming machine
with six stands (motor output shaft diameter 30 mm) from
pre-notched sheet 0.4 mm thick. As shown in Fig. 1, two
types of forming schedules, namely the center-bending
process and the circular-bending process were used [6].
For each forming process, a set of metal guides was attached
between F5 and F6 stand. Bend angles as shown in Fig. 1
were adopted from the method of Ona et al. [7].

0924-0136/01/$ see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 4 - 0 1 3 6 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 9 2 5 - 6

H. Watari, H. Ona / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 119 (2001) 122126

123

Fig. 3. Measurement of roundness.

Fig. 4. Measurement of bend in the vertical plane.

2.4. Measurement of shape defects

Fig. 1. Roll-pass schedules.

2.2. Roll adjustment

Roll clearances between the top and the bottom rolls were
adjusted to the sheet thickness which was 0.4 mm. In this
condition, non-notched products that were free from defects
were successfully formed. Under this roll adjustment, sheet
plates with various dimensions of pre-notch were formed.
2.3. Test piece and condition of pre-notch
The materials adopted were cold-rolled steel sheet (SPCC:
Japanese Industrial Standard) of 0.4 mm thick. Fig. 2 shows
the dimensions of a test piece. As shown in Table 1, the
dimensions of pre-notch conditions gave 48 combinations
of test pieces. As shown in Fig. 2, simple square holes were
pre-notched, where a denotes length of the notch, d width
of the notch, t plate thickness and c notch spacing.

In order to evaluate the accuracy of the specimen, both

roundness of the pre-notched sections and bend in the
vertical plane were measured. As shown in Fig. 3, the
magnitudes of roundness at six positions (D1, U1, etc.)
adjacent to the notches was measured by a roundnessmeasuring instrument. The magnitude of the bend in the
vertical plane was measured by a three-dimensional coordinate-measuring machine as shown in Fig. 4. This bend was
evaluated as the curvature of the pre-notched section and
was taken as the curvature of bend r 1 (1/m).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Forming limit
The result of possible formation in this experimental
condition is shown in Fig. 5. The horizontal axis shows
the notch-spacing ratio c/t and the vertical axis shows the

Fig. 2. Dimensions of test piece.

Table 1
Pre-notch ratiosa
a/t
c/t
d/D

20, 30, 40, 50

20, 40, 60, 80
0.25, 0.50, 0.75

a
a: notch length; c: notch spacing; d: notch breadth; t: sheet thickness;
D: pipe diameter.

Fig. 5. Forming limit and pre-notch parameters.

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ratio between the magnitude of second moment of area

for the cross-section with pre-notch (IP) and that for the
non-notched section (I0). In Fig. 5, black triangle mark
indicates impossible formation. White triangle and circle
marks indicate that the possibility of formation is under 35
and 70%, respectively. Double circle mark shows that the
formation is absolutely possible. The forming limit line
shown in Fig. 5 is for the case a=t 20. It can be seen that
the area of the possible formation tends to become larger
with decreasing notch-length ratio a/t. Also the area of
possible formation becomes larger when the notch-spacing
ratio c/t increases. It is considered that Fig. 5 can be
explained by adopting Euler's buckling theory [8]. The trend
shown in Fig. 5 is not affected by the different roll-pass
schedules of case A or B.

Fig. 7. Effects of pre-notch parameters on roundness in the case of

d=D 0:50.

3.2. Roundness of formed products

Roundness of the formed products that can be successfully formed was measured. In the experiment, the roundness of products at six points was measured as shown in
Fig. 3. The average of roundness at six points was used to
evaluate the quality of the products. Fig. 6 shows the
roundness in the case of d=D 0:25. In Fig. 6, it is seen
that the roundness of the products for case A is worse than
that for case B. In this case, it is considered that more
accurate roundness is obtained due to the effectiveness of
edge bending in case B. Also, roundness is slightly
decreased with an increase in notch-spacing ratio c/t.
Fig. 7 shows the result of the case of d=D 0:50. In
this case, it is found that the different forming processes
(case A or B) do not affect the roundness. Furthermore,
pre-notched products were successfully formed in this
condition. In the case of d=D 0:75 as seen in Fig. 8,
the quality of roundness is generally more than 0.20 mm.
In this case, it is hard to say that the products are
successfully manufactured. This can be considered to
be caused by the decreased exural rigidity in the vicinity
of the pre-notched section with increases in notch-breadth
ratio d/D.

Fig. 6. Effects of pre-notch parameters on roundness in the case of

d=D 0:25.

Fig. 8. Effects of pre-notch parameters on roundness in the case of

d=D 0:75.

3.3. Bend in the vertical plane

Fig. 9 shows the effect of notch length on the magnitude of
bend in the vertical plane in case A. It is observed that an
increase in notch length increases the magnitudes of bend in
the vertical plane. The bend that occurred in products with
small notch-spacing ratio c=t 20; 40 was generally larger than that in products with larger spacing ratio
c=t 60; 80. The above result was obtained from the date
measured for the section of d=D 0:50. It was shown that
other results had almost the same tendency. Fig. 10 represents the effect of notch length on the magnitude of bend in

Fig. 9. Effects of pre-notch parameters on bend in case A.

H. Watari, H. Ona / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 119 (2001) 122126

Fig. 10. Effects of pre-notch parameters on bend in case B.

the vertical plane for case B. It can be seen that an increase in

notch length increases the magnitude of bend in the vertical
plane when the products have a large notch-spacing ratio
c=t 60; 80. However, when the products have a small
notch-spacing ratio c=t 20; 40, the data obtained were
irregular. Thus in this case, the formation itself is unstable
which shows that a distinct trend could not be found for
bending in the vertical plane.
3.4. Mechanism of occurrence of shape defects
In Figs. 11 and 12, schematic models for the mechanism
that cause the defects in terms of roundness and bend are
illustrated. As shown in Fig. 11, it has generally been
demonstrated that the vicinity of the pre-notched section
experiences a change from longitudinal tensile stress to
longitudinal compressive stress when the sheet passes from
the Nth roll to the N 1th roll [2,916]. Considering the
case when the sheet passes from the F5 to the F6 roll, a
change of the longitudinal membrane stress is shown in
Fig. 11. The phenomenon of the occurrence of defects near
the pre-notched section can be explained as follows: in case
A, when the pre-notched section comes close to the roll axis
which dominates the occurrence of edge buckling, the state
of stress of a small element there indicates a change from

125

Fig. 12. Mechanism of occurrence of bend.

the state of uniaxial stress to the state of biaxial stress

(Fig. 11ac). The edge portion of the pre-notched section
cannot be bent because a vertical force from the upper
direction cannot successfully act upon it due to the prenotch (Fig. 11d). Therefore, buckling is caused and the
edge portion of the pre-notched section moves towards the
inside. As a result, the value of roundness in the products
was not satisfactory. In case B, the magnitude of a vertical
force from an upper direction nearby the roll axis is less
than that of case A, although the change of the longitudinal
membrane stress is almost the same as that of case A
(Fig. 11ac). However, the edge portion of the pre-notched
section still cannot be bent. Therefore, the edge portion of
the pre-notched section moves towards the outside due to
the spring back that is caused by the release of the circumferential residual stress at the pre-notched section
(Fig. 11d) [35]. Thus, the roundness around the prenotched section becomes less accurate. In Fig. 12, the
mechanism that causes bending in the vertical plane is
shown by a schematic model. The deformation of the prenotched section during formation shows upward bending of
the products in both cases A and B. Although, the mechanism that causes the shape defects of pre-notched small pipes
during formation has been examined, more detailed
research will be required.
4. Conclusions
In the present research, the relationship between the shape
defects of the formed small pipes and pre-notch conditions
has been shown along with the mechanism causing the
defects. The conclusions are summarized as follows:

Fig. 11. Mechanism of fault in roundness.

1. A limited forming range of pre-notched small pipes is

shown utilizing the following parameters: ratio of the
second moment of area of the pre-notched and the nonnotched sections (IP/I0), notch-length ratio a/t, notchspacing ratio c/t, and notch-breadth ratio d/D.
2. For the condition of notch-length ratio a=t 20, notchspacing ratio c=t 80 and notch-breadth ratio

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H. Watari, H. Ona / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 119 (2001) 122126

d=D 0:50, small pipes with pre-notches were successfully manufactured with relatively high accuracy.
3. It is demonstrated that the roll-pass schedule A is more
appropriate in order to obtain high accuracy in
manufacturing pre-notched small pipes.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the valuable
suggestions made by Mr. Mochida of Ohta Seisaku-sho
for useful discussions in connection with this work. The
authors also wish to acknowledge the assistance of Mitutoyo
Co. Ltd., and the continuing guidance and encouragement of
Prof. Kurosu and Prof. Nishiwaki.
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