Study of wire deformation characterization and size effects during the micro-flat-rolling process

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. A comprehensive research on the flat rolling deformation characterization of microwire has been conducted systematically through finite element simulation and testified by the results from the experimental analysis. The obtained results are compared in terms of lateral spread, geometrical characteristic, contact area width and surface roughness considering the effects of pass reduction and initial wire diameter. The size effect has been identified and surface layer modeling has been set up based on surface grain share and grain size distribution. The numerical method combined with varied flow stress has been verified by experimental value with a maximum difference of 3.7% for the 1.5 mm wire. With the increase of the height reduction, the curvature radius is decreased while the lateral spread and contact area width are increased. Surface roughness evolution in the range of 0.52–0.85 µm for the rolled wire has also been investigated.