Journal of Iron and Steel Research, International, 2014, 21 (Supplement 1)

Effect of Cu on Surface Microcrack of Austenitic Stainless

Cold Rolled Coil
Ji-xiang PAN1, Guo-yu QIAN2, Guo-guang CHENG2,
Yan LI1, Wei PAN1, Zi-bing HOU2, Chao CHEN2
(1. Jiuquan Iron and Steel Co., Jiayuguan 735100, Gansu, China; 2. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallurgy,
University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China)

Abstract: In order to find out the cause of surface microcrack on 304 austenitic stainless cold rolled coils which is
produced in a steel plant of China, lots of studies have been carried out. The results indicated that the copper guide
of steekle mill used in hot rolling process contacts directly with the hot rolled coil, so parts of copper melt and glued
to the surface of the stainless steel plates due to a higher temperature of stainless steel plates than the copper melting
temperature, which leads to deterioration of austenitic grain boundaries. Shear stress produced in the process of repeat-
rolling on finishing mill induces the surface microcracks and promotes it. After changing the copper guide to the cast steel
one, such kinds of surface microcracks have never appeared.
Key words: steekle mill; austenitic stainless steel; surface microcrack; copper guide

304 stainless steel is the typical austenitic
stainless steel and has been widely used for humanlife
and industrial fields. In particular, the requirement for
its high surface quality is becoming more and more
important[1, 2]. It is well known that there are many
factors influencing the surface quality of stainless
steel.In addition to the metallurgical process, the
rolling process and heat treatment could also lead to
various kinds of surface defects of the steel plates,
which have brought a great impact on the usability
of the stainless steels[3, 4]. In the present work, a lot of
studies have been carried out to find out the cause of
surface microcrack on 304 austenitic stainless cold
rolled coils which is produced in a steel plant of China.
1 Steelmaking and Rolling Process
304 stainless steelmaking process in this steel
plant is that: BF→AOD→LF→CC. The continuous
caster used for production is a straight curved slab
caster, and the cross section of the slab is 220 mm×
1600 mm. Fig. 1 shows schematic of stainless steel
rolling process[5]. First, the continuously cast slabs are
heated in the heating furnace, then roughly rolled, and
finish rolling is given in steekle mill, subsequently.
Hot rolled plates with the thickness of 3.0 mm are
obtained, and the composition is shown in Table 1.
Next, laminar cooling process and coiling process
are carried out to obtain the hot rolled coils under
a laminar cooling device and a recoiling machine,
respectively. These hot rolled coils are finally trans-
ported to the cold rolling process.
2 Characteristics of Surface Cracks in Cold
Rolled Coils
Fig. 2 shows the macro morphology of surface
crack, and it can be seen that most of these cracks
distribute perpendicularly to the rolling direction as
shown by the black arrow in the picture of Fig. 2 and
present a line, and there are also a small number of
cracks presenting a disordered distribution as shown in
Fig. 3 as well. Through the pickling of a large number
of hot rolled black coils, it can be seen that these
cracks do not cover the entire surface of the hot rolled
coils, but distribute randomly in any parts of along the
rolling direction.Through the above observation, it can
be indicated that these cracks mainly belong to surface
transverse cracks.
3 Metallographic Structure and Energy
Spectrum Analysis of Surface Microcracks
3.1 Metallographic structure
Fig. 4 shows the metallographic structures
of cold rolled coil with and without microcracks,
respectively. It can be seen in Fig. 4(a) that there is
very small amount of δ-ferrites around the cracks, and
metallographic structures appear normal. Fig. 4(b)
shows the typical metallographic structures of austenitic
stainless steel, and very small amount of δ-ferrites exist.

Biography: Ji-xiang PAN, Master, Senior Engineer; E-mail: xy42002@163.com

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 Effect of Cu on Surface Microcrack of Austenitic Stainless Cold Rolled Coil

Fig. 1 Hot rolling process of stainless steel

Table 1 Chemical compositions of 304 stainless steel mass%

C Si Mn P S Cr Ni Cu Als Alt
0.04 0.38 1.2 0.035 0.0012 18.2 8.16 0.02 0.0024 0.0036

Fig. 2 Macromorphology of surface crack Fig. 3 Surface crack appearance observed by SEM

(a) With microcrack; (b) Without microcrack.

Fig. 4 Metallographic structures of cold rolled coil with microcrack and without microcrack

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 Effect of Cu on Surface Microcrack of Austenitic Stainless Cold Rolled Coil
Through the metallographic observation above, it was
found that there is little difference between the two
metallographic structures shown in Figs. 4(a) and 4(b),
so it can be concluded that there is almost no direct
relationship between the generation of cracks and the
metallographic structure.
3.2 Composition analysis of the crack inside
Fig. 5 and Table 2 show the test positions and
chemical compositions of elements of the crack by
SEM, respectively. The results show that copper
content is higher at positions 1 and 2 within the crack,
but copper is not found at position 3 outside the crack.
Table 2 Chemical compositions of elements on marked points in Fig. 5
Point C-K O-K Si-K
1 52.18 13.83 0.51
2 13.38 24.33 0.46
3 18.68
3.3 Further analysis of the copper element within
the crack
From the previous analysis results, it can be
understood that Cu may have a certain influence on
cracks, so further systematic analysis of Cu within the
crack was conducted. Fig. 6 and Table 3 show the test
positions and chemical compositions of elements of
the crack, respectively. The increase of copper content
can be found at many positions within and around
the crack, where the copper content at position 6 is
significantly higher than the others, and the energy
spectrum of Cu at point 6 is shown in Fig. 7.
So further analysis for the position 6 was carried
out by line scanning of SEM. It was found that the
copper content within the crack is indeed higher than
that in other areas, as shown in Fig. 8 where the upper
line and the lower line represent the distribution of
Fig. 6 Marked points on one of cracks
Fig. 5 Test positions of chemical compositions within and
near the crack
mass%
Ca-K Cr-K Fe-K Ni-K Cu-K
0.50 10.53 20.33 2.11
32.27 23.86 5.70
74.23 7.09
copper content and ferric content, respectively. The
phenomenon of a higher copper content within the crack
was discovered in many other areas, as shown in Figs.
9 and 10. But it is worth noticing that the oxidation of
iron atoms within the crack can also cause lower ferric
content within this area, which leads to the relative
increase of copper content, as shown in Figs. 8 and 10.
4 Discussion
In order to find out the source of the cracks,
many investigations in the industrial production were
carried out. First, the replacement of copper plate in
the mould of continuous casting and the industrial tests
for improving the cleanliness have been performed,
and the surface of the slabs were ground off about 3
mm. However these measures had no obvious effect
on eliminating this kind of surface crack. Therefore,
it was convinced that these cracks did not form before
the hot rolling process. Next, the effects of reducing
the annealing tension and optimizing the annealing
temperature did not suppress the occurrence of cracks.
Finally, pickling process was implemented for hot
rolled coils which did undergo annealing and scale
breaking, and it was found that the cracks on the
surface of the hot rolled coils and cold rolled coils had
the similar morphology. Based on the investigation
above, it was supposed that these cracks came into
being in the process of hot rolling.
Two steekle mills brought in from VAUIK
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 Effect of Cu on Surface Microcrack of Austenitic Stainless Cold Rolled Coil

Table 3 Chemical compositions of marked points in Fig. 6 mass%

Point N-K O-K Al-K Si-K P-K Cr-K Mn-K Fe-K Ni-K Cu-K
1 1.17 0.19 18.85 71.59 7.05 1.14
2 0.82 2.22 0.13 4.22 92.61 0.00
3 0.00 0.17 19.61 71.53 7.60 1.09
4 0.00 17.63 6.10 12.06 0.00 12.81 46.36 5.04 0.00
5 2.65 28.22 15.37 14.87 0.00 8.89 30.00 0.00
6 0.00 0.00 34.77 10.69 44.58 9.95

Company and SIEMENS Company are used in hot

Fig. 7 Energy spectrum of Cu on point 6 in Fig. 6
rolling process, and the hot rolling process of stainless
steel is shown in Fig. 1. Cu found in cracks mainly
comes from the copper guide plate of the finishing mill
which is almost the only source of the copper in the
hot rolling process. The guide is an important auxiliary
device of hot rolling process, as shown in Fig. 11[6, 7],
and mainly used for inducing and clamping the hot
rolled coils smoothly into the roller.

Fig. 8 Line scanning spectrum Cu on point 6 in Fig. 6 Fig. 9 Line scanning spectrum Cu in other area

Fig. 10 Line scanning spectrum Cu in other crack

The hot rolled coils can be heated to about 1060 °C
because of two coiler furnaces equipped on both sides
of the steekle mill and will directly contact with the
copper guide plate in the rolling process. In addition,
the material of the guide plate is not pure copper which
has melting temperature in the range of 940–970 °C.
So it can be understood that wear is generated step by
step between copper guide plate and hot rolled coils
in the rolling process. In that way, copper atoms will
gradually spread to the surface of the steel plate due
to the melting of some copper. Because copper is a
kind of grain boundary enrichment element[8–10], it will

59
 Effect of Cu on Surface Microcrack of Austenitic Stainless Cold Rolled Coil
Fig. 11 Working position of the bottom guide in steekle mill
diffuse along the defects or grain boundaries of the
surface of the steel plate. Meanwhile, the oxidation
of local iron atoms can also lead to the enrichment of
copper atoms at defects or grain boundaries since iron
atoms are more easily oxidized than copper atoms, as
shown in Fig. 10 that iron and copper content present
an opposite change tendency, which further raise
the relative content of copper in cracks. From the
discussion above, it can be seen that the deformation
stress generated on the surface of the hot rolled coils
in the rolling process can promote the formation
and development of cracks when the steel plates are
repeatedly rolled.
5 Improvement Approach
Based on the results of the investigation, copper
guide plate used for production was replaced with a
new cast steel guide plate. The testing results showed
that 114 cold rolled coils were produced before the
replacement of guild plate, where 37 cold rolled coils
contained surface cracks, in other words, the defective
rate is 32.46%; however, there is no surface cracks in
103 cold rolled coils produced after the replacement of
guild plate. So it can be known that the surface cracks
in the cold rolled coils were eliminated through the
replacement of guild plate in steekle mill.
6 Conclusions
(1) The main source of higher copper content in
the crack of the cold rolled coils is the copper guild
plate of steekle mill used for the rolling of the 304
stainless steel plates, which leads to the occurrence of
surface cracks.
60
(2) The hot rolled coils directly contact with the
copper guide plate in the rolling process, so parts of
copper melt and glued to the surface of the stainless
steel plates due to a higher temperature of stainless
steel plates than the copper melting temperature,
which leads to the deterioration of the austenitic grain
boundary on the surface of the stainless steel plates.
Therefore, the deformation stress generated on the
surface of the hot rolled coils in the rolling process
can promote the formation and development of cracks
when the steel plates are repeatedly rolled.
(3) There is no obvious difference between the
metallographic structures in the areas around the
cracks and the areas without cracks, and the source
of the cracks is not in the steelmaking process and
annealing process.
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