Materials Science and Technology

ISSN: 0267-0836 (Print) 1743-2847 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ymst20

Microstructure simulation of copper tube and its

application in three roll planetary rolling

B. Li, S. H. Zhang, G. L. Zhang, H. Y. Zhang & H. Q. Zhang

To cite this article: B. Li, S. H. Zhang, G. L. Zhang, H. Y. Zhang & H. Q. Zhang (2007)
Microstructure simulation of copper tube and its application in three roll planetary rolling, Materials
Science and Technology, 23:6, 715-722, DOI: 10.1179/174328407X185848

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1179/174328407X185848

Published online: 19 Jul 2013.

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Microstructure simulation of copper tube and
its application in three roll planetary rolling
B. Li1, S. H. Zhang*1, G. L. Zhang1, H. Y. Zhang1 and H. Q. Zhang2
The three roll planetary rolling of copper tubes is a single pass and large deformation process. In
the present paper, the temperature of the copper tube exceeds its recrystallisation temperature
as a result of the heat energy generated from severe deformation and friction work. Therefore, the
grain size and mechanical properties of the copper tube change fiercely. The constitutive
equations of the copper tube were also derived and used as a material model. The dynamic
recrystallisation and grain growth models of the copper tube were developed. The grain
distribution rules of the copper tube were obtained by integrating the microstructure evolution
model into finite element simulation. The grain sizes of the copper tube under different parameters
were predicted by artificial neural network. It is in good agreement with the measured results,
which can be used in optimising the properties of the rolled copper tube.
Keywords: Copper tube, Three roll planetary rolling, Constitutive equations, Dynamic recrystallisation, Microstructure simulation

List of symbols ep peak strain

s flow stress and Stefan–Boltzman constant
A material constant ss yield stress
ddrxthe grain size of dynamic recrystallisation t friction shear stress
d(t)the grain size at time t
hcconvection heat transfer coefficient
hrcontact heat transfer coefficient Introduction
nmaterial constant With the development of copper tube products, the
qrheat flux transferred to rollers on the contact research on the processing technology of copper tubes
surface has expanded gradually. Casting and rolling are the key
qrc heat flux considering the convection heat technology of copper tube processing and the three roll
transfer and radiation planetary mill, Planet Schräge Walzwerk (PSW), is also
QDEF activation energy for deformation the key component of the core technology. The three roll
Qf heat rate density generated by friction work planetary mill mainly contains three conical rollers, an
Qp heat rate density generated by plastic work external ring and a mandrel, as shown in Fig. 1a. The
R the gas constant rollers have a certain inclined angle and an offset angle,
T absolute temperature which causes plastic deformation and forward move-
Tr roll surface temperature ments of the copper tube as the rollers rotate. The
Ts ambient temperature magnified view of the deformation zones is shown in
Dv slip between rollers and billet Fig. 1b. Four deformation zones exist along the rolling
Xdrx the volume fraction of dynamic recrystallisation direction, including the reducing zone, the concentrating
Z Zener–Hollomon parameter deformation zone, which is the critical zone for micro-
structure evolution, the smooth zone and the calibration
a the constant zone. The profile of the roller is useful for deformation
af the fraction of friction work turned into heat of the copper tube billet in one rolling pass. The
ap the fraction of plastic power turned into heat characters of PSW include the realisation of single pass
e emissivity and strain in plastic deformation and large deformation, and the grain size changes
analysis sharply. The grain sizes, which intensively affect the
ė: strain rate properties of the rolling products, would largely alter
e- equivalent strain rate under different parameters. To improve the mechanical
ec critical strain properties of the products, it is necessary to quantify the
microstructure development of rolled copper tubes.
1
A finite model has been developed and the deforma-
Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang
110016, China tion of stainless steel has been simulated in the three roll
2
School of Mechanical Engineering, Shenyang University, Shenyang planetary rolling process.1,2 The laws of the dynamic
110044, China recrystallisation of copper have been analysed.3–5 The
*Corresponding author, email shzhang@imr.ac.cn dynamic recrystallisation of copper polycrystals with

ß 2007 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining

Published by Maney on behalf of the Institute
Received 6 November 2006; accepted 7 March 2007
DOI 10.1179/174328407X185848 Materials Science and Technology 2007 VOL 23 NO 6 715
Li et al. Microstructure simulation of copper tube and its application

microstructure. However, few papers have discussed

the microstructure model of copper tubes during the
three roll planetary rolling process, although it is very
important to improve the properties of copper tubes.
Therefore in the present paper, the constitutive
equation of the TP2 (a type of copper deoxidised by
phosphorus element, ASTM: C12200) copper tube billet
at different temperatures was obtained based on the
Gleeble experiments. The DRX model of the copper
tube and the microstructure evolution model were built
based on the experimental data and the grain size of the
copper tube was simulated by the finite element method
using the microstructure evolution model. The optimis-
ing grain size of the copper tube was predicted using
artificial neural network. This is important to under-
stand the grain evolution rules of the copper tube during
three roll planetary rolling and to optimise the proper-
ties of rolled products.

Constitutive equations
The experimental material is TP2 (ASTM: C12200)
copper billet, the chemical composition of which is
shown in Table 1.
A series of typical stress–strain curves were obtained
during hot compression of the TP2 copper billet.
1 a cross-section of three roll planetary mill and b mag-
Because the constitutive equation of TP2 copper has
nified view of deformation zones of roller
the character of lower flow stress at high temperature
deformation, the power exponential Arrhenius equation
different purities based on hot compression tests has can be described by the following equation3
been discussed and the hot deformation behaviours of
copper have been characterised by multiple peaks, or a : QDEF
Asn ~ eexp
- (1)
single peak flow, and a new grain evolution by dynamic RT
recrystallisation at high strains.3 The initiation of where A and n are the material constants, QDEF is the
dynamic recrystallisation (DRX) of pure copper under :
activation energy for deformation, s the flow stress, e-
inhomogenous stress states has been analysed and its the equivalent strain rate, T the absolute temperature
initiation temperature was at 673 K.4 The nucleation and R the gas constant.
and microtexture development under dynamic recrys- Taking logarithm of the two sides of equation (1)
tallisation of copper has been investigated, the mechan- gives
isms of dynamic nucleation of copper have been
discussed and the new DRX grains are evolved by : QDEF
ln e~n
- lnszlnA{ ~n lnszB (2)
bulging of serrated grain boundaries, which accompa- RT
nies twinning at the back of the migrating reserved.5 The :
This equation shows a linear relationship between ln e-
hot deformation behaviour of copper alloy during and lns. Therefore, based on the experimental results, n
compression at elevated temperatures has been analysed and B can be obtained by regression, then A can be
and the hot deformation activation energy has been calculated from the following equation
derived.6 Some papers discussed the microstructure

simulation of forming process. Sellars7,8 and Liu and QDEF
A~exp Bz (3)
Lin9 worked on modelling the microstructure in hot RT
rolling process and multipass hot rolling. The spread-
sheet modelling of grain size evolution during rod rolling Also, the following equation can be obtained, which
could be achieved by organising the equations relating indicates the linear relationship between lns and 1/T
grain size and hot working parameters into a computer :
QDEF lne lnA
spreadsheet program.10 Lehnert and Cuong11 analysed lns~ z { (4)
nRT n n
the experimental and mathematical simulation of micro-
structural evolution of Al and Cu materials in the hot QDEF can be calculated using the following equation
rolling process. The prediction of microstructural Llns
evolution and the mechanical properties of hot strips QDEF ~ nR (5)
L1=T
have been investigated for steel material.12 Siwecki13
modelled the microstructure evolution during recrystal- To cope with the coupling problem, the constitutive
lisation controlled rolling for austenite steel. equation should be taken in the functional form of strain
Ravichandran14 investigated the application of dynamic Table 1 Chemical composition of copper billet, wt-%
recrystallisation model for the prediction of microstruc-
ture during hot working of materials and the model Cu Mn Ni Fe S P Others
proposed for explaining the microstructural evolution
99.90 0.002 0.005 0.005 0.004 0.039 0.045
during DRX is extended to predict the resulting

716 Materials Science and Technology 2007 VOL 23 NO 6


rate and temperature. Therefore, based on all para-
meters by calculation, the constitutive equations of
copper can be obtained using such equations as the
foundation of mathematical calculation.
Modelling
Heat boundary conditions and heat energy
In the PSW rolling process, the temperature of the
copper tube increases from room temperature to above
the recrystallisation temperature of copper in one rolling
pass, the heat energy of which comes from plastic
deformation and friction work. Heat generation due to
plastic deformation and friction in the contact zone
must be taken into account during the rolling process, as
well as the heat transfer to rollers. Greater temperature
changes take place in the deformation zone, especially in
the layers near the contact surfaces. On the all boundary
c, the heat flux qrc is prescribed by
h i
qrc ~se ðTz273Þ4 {ðTs z273Þ4 zhc (T{Ts ) (6)
where s is the Stefan–Boltzman constant, e the
emissivity, Ts the ambient temperature and hc the
convection heat transfer coefficient.
In the PSW rolling, the difference in temperature
between the roller and billet is remarkably large, and
then, the contact heat transfer cannot be negligible. In
the present analysis, because evaluation of the tempera-
ture varies on the contact surface, the heat transfer
coefficient hr for the contact heat transfer is introduced.
It is assumed that the heat flux qr transferred to rollers
on the contact surface can be written as
qr ~{hr ðT{Tr Þ (7)
where Tr is the roller surface temperature. The contact heat
transfer coefficient should be determined by measurements.
Nearly all the energy dissipated in the plastic
deformation process is converted into heat energy and
causes the temperature of the material to rise. In the
present paper, for copper material, the heat rise
represents 90?0% of the plastic work.15 The remainder
of the plastic work is stored as internal energy associated
with the small scale non-homogeneous deformation,
which is an inherent characteristic of plastic flow. This
energy can be recovered during or/and after rolling by
recovery and recrystallisation. The heat rate density Qp
to be generated due to the plastic work is expressed by
: compensated strain rate Z
Qp ~ap ss e- (8)
where ss is the yield stress and ap the fraction of plastic
power that turns into heat. For the PSW rolling, the
: where Z is the Zener–Hollomon parameter and ė the
equivalent strain rate e- is larger than that for conven-
tional rolling processes; therefore, the heat rate density
to be generated due to the plastic work is very large for
the rolling time within 3 s and a large amount of heat
energy is generated, which can increase the temperature
of the rolled copper tube sharply. The wall of the rolled
copper tube billet changes from 20 to 2 mm; the
deforming time only is within 3 s.
In the arc of contact, the heat rate density Qf
generated by friction is given by
Qf ~af tDv (9)
where t is the friction shear stress, Dv the slip between
Li et al. Microstructure simulation of copper tube and its application
the rollers and billet, and af the fraction of friction work,
which turns into heat that is transferred to the billet. It is
assumed that the roller and billet obtain equal half heat
energy generated by friction work in MSC.Marc finite
element calculation program.
For the PSW rolling, the slip between the rollers and
billet is larger than that for the conventional rolling
process, especially in the concentrating deformation
zone of the rollers, then the heat rate density to be
generated due to the friction work is larger than that in
an ordinary rolling process and a large amount of heat
energy is generated, which explains why the temperature
of the rolled copper billet increases so quickly. The two
types of heat energy generated by plastic deformation
and friction work merge together, which are far larger
than the convection and contact surface loss and
increase the initial temperature of copper billet to above
the temperature of dynamic recrystallisation of the
copper tube within 3 s rolling time. Therefore, dynamic
recrystallisation occurs during the three roll planetary
rolling.
Microstructure evolution model
With the deformation development of rolled copper in
the three roll planetary rolling, the temperature of the
copper tube will be increased continuously, which can
exceed the recrystallisation temperature of copper, so
recrystallisation occurred in the deformation process.
During the PSW rolling, the deformation characters
include that the temperature of the rolled copper tube
increases from room temperature to above the recrys-
tallisation temperature, the rolling time is within 3 s and
the copper tube is cooled by water smoke after rolling.
The static recrystallisation impacts on the grain size of
the rolled copper tube faintly. Therefore, the present
paper ignores the effect of static recrystallisation and
only analyses the dynamic recrystallisation and the grain
growth, by which accurate simulation results and
simplify analysis process can also be obtained.
Therefore, the dynamic recrystallisation and grain
growth models were developed using a large amount
of experimental results in the three roll planetary rolling.
Using the constitutive equation of the copper tube,
the parameter Z can be first obtained and other
parameters in the dynamic recrystallisation formula
were also gained in the present paper. The deformation
conditions are expressed in terms of temperature
: QDEF
Z~eexp (10)
RT
strain rate.
Based on thermal simulation experiments, it was
observed that when the temperature of copper billet
reaches 723 K, the DRX grain can be observed. When
the temperature of copper is .723 K, DRX grains will
be generated quickly as the strain reached the critical
strain.
The relationship between ep and Z is shown in the
following equation
ep ~AZ n1 (11)
Taking logarithm of the two sides of the equation gives
Materials Science and Technology 2007 VOL 23 NO 6 717
Li et al. Microstructure simulation of copper tube and its application

2 Flow chart of microstructure simulation

indicated by the following equation

lnep ~lnAzn1 Z (12)
ddrx ~CZ n3 (18)
The values of n1 and A can be obtained based on the
linear relationship of ln ep and ln Z. Then, the peak Taking logarithm of the two sides of the equation gives
strain ep and the critical strain ec are obtained
lnddrx ~lnCzn3 lnZ (19)
:
ep ~1:32|10{3 Z0 12 (13)
Based on the linear relationship between ln ddrx and
ln Z, the values of n3 and C can be obtained. Then, the
ec ~aep (14) grain size of dynamic recrystallisation ddrx can be
where a is the constant. obtained
The volume fraction of dynamic recrystallisation Xdrx :
ddrx ~1:26|105 Z {0 23 (20)
is expressed using the following equation

  When the dynamic recrystallisation finished, at a certain
e{ec n2 time t, the grain size at time t of dynamic recrystallisa-
Xdrx ~1{exp {B (15)
ep tion for the copper tube can be calculated. The
Taking logarithm of the two sides of the equation gives conventional grain growth law16 was used to simulate
the grain growth.
1 e{ec The grain size of dynamic recrystallisation ddrx is
ln ln ~lnBzn2 ln (16)
1{Xdrx ep expressed by the following equation
According to the linear relationship between dt2 ~ddrx
2
zDt|10{E=T (21)
ln ln[1/(12Xdrx)] and ln[(e2ec)/ep)], the values of n2
and B can be obtained. Then, the volume fraction of Take logarithm of the two sides of the equation gives
dynamic recrystallisation Xdrx can be obtained   E
"
: # log dt2 {ddrx
2
~logDzlogt{ (22)
e{ec 0 15 T
Xdrx ~1{exp {0 34 : (17)
ep Based on the linear relationship between log(dt22ddrx2)
and 1/T, the value of E can be obtained, then that of D
The grain size of dynamic recrystallisation ddrx is can be obtained according to the linear relationship

718 Materials Science and Technology 2007 VOL 23 NO 6


3 Finite element model of three roll planetary rolling
between dt22ddrx2 and t6102E/T. The grain growth
model of the rolled copper tube based on the regression
analysis is shown as follows
dt2 ~ddrx
2
z3:16|1010 t|10{3520=T (23)
where dt is the grain size at time t and ddrx the initial
grain size. The grain growth model of the copper tube
complies with the uniform temperature rule and the
recrystallisation grain growth size will increase continu-
ally in the high temperature field.
The proposed microstructure evolution models (DRX
and grain growth) are adopted in the deforming process
of three roll planetary rolling of the copper tube. The
microstructure evolution model was integrated with the
4 Calculated grain size distribution in different zones of copper tube
Li et al. Microstructure simulation of copper tube and its application
finite element model on the platform of commercial
software MSC.Marc and its principle of work flow is
illustrated in Fig. 2. The volume fraction and grain size
of dynamic recrystallisation can be deduced by such a
flow chart. Through the coordinate conversion, the finite
element model of the three roll planetary rolling, as
shown in Fig. 3, was established, considering not only
the inclined angle but also the offset angle of the three
rollers. In the calculation, the problems of three-
dimensional large deformation were resolved using the
updated Lagrange arithmetic, the Prandtl–Reuss flow
equation and the von Mises yield criteria. Based on the
above model, the grain evolution rules of the TP2
copper tube were obtained for the three roll planetary
rolling process.
Results and discussion
Microstructure evolution rules
The distribution rule of grain size in the three roll
planetary rolling was calculated, as shown in Fig. 4.
With increasing deformation of rolled copper, the
temperature in the contact regions between the rollers
and the rolled copper tube reaches above the tempera-
ture of recrystallisation. Therefore, dynamic recrystalli-
sation occurs in the upper and lower sides of the copper
billet and merges in the concentrating deformation zone
of the roller. Dynamic recrystallisation occurs in the
whole wall thickness direction and many nuclei of DRX
are formed. The grain size evolution curve of one node
in the rolled copper tube is demonstrated in Fig. 5a and
Fig. 5b is the partial enlarged curve of the node, which
indicates that the dynamic recrystallisation occurs when
the deformation condition satisfies. With the develop-
ment of deformation, the initial grains of dynamic
recrystallisation will grow gradually in the stage of high
temperature.
The simulation result is consistent with the grain
evolution in Fig. 6, which shows the grain of TP2 copper
tube section; the corrosive is a 50% nitric acid watery
solution. Figure 7a b show the rolling grain size of the
Materials Science and Technology 2007 VOL 23 NO 6 719
Li et al. Microstructure simulation of copper tube and its application
5 Grain size evolution curve of one node in rolled copper tube
copper tube; the proportion of corrosive is the nitric
acid : phosphoric acid : glacial acetic acid51 : 1 : 1.
Figure 8 shows the grain size (about 5–15 mm) of the
copper tube in the concentrating deformation zone.
Figure 7b shows the grain size (about 25–45 mm) at the
720 Materials Science and Technology 2007 VOL 23 NO
rolling exit. The grain size of the copper tube during
simulation was in good agreement with the measured
results, which indicated that the grain model can be used
in the prediction of grain evolution of such a copper
tube in the three roll planetary rolling.
6

6 Grain of TP2 copper tube section
Predicted grain size results
A large amount of simulation projects were given by the
uniform design method and the simulation results were
trained in back propagation (BP) neural network based
on the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm.17 The calcula-
tion results were used as input samples of artificial
neural network. Then, the projection relationship model
was built using a large amount of training samples.
The grain size of the copper tube under different
rolling parameters could be predicted. The mapping
relationship between the process parameters and the
microstructure was established to predict the grain size
7 Grain sizes of copper tube in different positions
Li et al. Microstructure simulation of copper tube and its application
8 Grain size distribution map under different parameters
at real time. The effects of friction coefficient and offset
angle on the microstructure of copper tube were
analysed using the trained neural network. The neural
network approach appears to be a powerful tool in
predicting microstructure. The results presented show
that prediction of the microstructure of the copper tube
is in good agreement with the experimental data. The
predicted grain size of copper tube was in good
agreement with the measured results, which indicated
that the grain model can be used in prediction of grain
evolution of such copper tube in the three roll planetary
rolling.
The grain size distribution map under different offset
angles and friction coefficients is shown in Fig. 8. The
offset angle and friction coefficient have great effects on
the grain size of the rolled copper tube and then, the
optimising grain condition corresponds with the best
mechanical properties of the rolled copper tube. With
increasing offset angle and friction coefficient, the grain
size grows in a general tendency. The smallest grain size
was in the region with the smallest offset angle and
friction coefficient. Some special regions can also make
the smaller grain size in the regions of a larger offset
angle, which can increase the production efficiency of a
rolled copper tube. It can be seen that the grain size
generally tends to increase with the offset angle. The
most important finding is that the smaller grain size is in
the region with an offset angle of 8?5u and a friction
coefficient of 0?45. The reasons are as follows. With
increasing offset angle, the rolling temperature also rises,
and then the grain size will grow. On the other hand,
with increasing offset angle, the rolling velocity also
increases, and then the grain size is smaller due to the
shorter time of the grain growth of the rolled copper
tube. The friction coefficient also affects the grain size of
the rolled copper tube in two ways. When the friction
coefficient decreases, the friction work and the rolling
temperature are lower, and then the grain size is smaller.
On the other hand, with decreasing friction coefficient,
the rolling velocity will also decease, then the grain
growth time is longer and the grain size will be larger.
Therefore, the effect of rolling parameters on the grain
size of the rolled copper tube is very complex. The grain
size under different parameters was measured, which
proved that the grain size is smaller as the condition of
an offset angle of 8?5u and the friction condition better.
Materials Science and Technology 2007 VOL 23 NO 6 721
Li et al. Microstructure simulation of copper tube and its application
The quality of the rolled copper tube under the above
parameter is better. Therefore, this is a very effective
method to predict product qualities by calculating
microstructures based on simulation and artificial neural
network.
Conclusions
The three roll planetary rolling of copper tubes is
a single pass and large deformation process, and the
grain size of copper tubes changes severely. Therefore, a
mathematical model based on the finite element method
has been developed to predict the microstructural
changes of copper tubes in the three roll planetary
rolling. The following conclusions were drawn. The
constitutive equations of copper tube billet were
established, which was the foundation of mathematical
calculation. A mathematical model based on a large
amount of experimental results has been developed to
predict the microstructural changes of the copper tube
during the three roll planetary rolling. The micro-
structure evolution model was integrated with the finite
element code and the grain distribution rules of the
copper tube in the three roll planetary rolling were
calculated, which are in good agreement with the
measured results. The grain size condition is obtained
by simulation and artificial neural network. The
practicability of the grain model was proved and the
model could be used as an offline guideline for
evaluating temperature and microstructural changes
for an industrial three roll planetary rolling line.
722 Materials Science and Technology 2007 VOL 23
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the financial support from
the Natural Science Foundation of China (Project
No. 50474059) and the National Key Projects of
China (Project No. 2002BA327C) in the research field
of the casting and rolling of copper tubes.
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