A steel round bar is a long cylindrical solid metal bar or rod made of steel that is used in various applications due to its versatile mechanical properties. Round bars are commonly used in automotive, construction, infrastructure and other engineering industries.
Material Properties
Steel round bars are made of various steel alloy compositions to achieve desired material properties. The common steel grades used are carbon steel, alloy steel and stainless steel. Carbon steel round bars have excellent strength and are economical but have lower corrosion resistance. Alloy steels have enhanced strength, toughness and other properties. Stainless steel round bars offer higher strength, corrosion resistance and durability important for critical applications.
The key material properties of round bars include tensile strength, yield strength, ductility, hardness, fatigue strength and impact strength. These properties depend on the steel grade, heat treatment applied and surface finish/coating used. Round bars suitable for high load applications have ultimate tensile strength ranging 450-1900 MPa. The surface hardness of bars ranges from 150 HV to 700 HV depending on heat treatment.
Sizes and Tolerances
Steel round bars are available in various standardized diameters ranging from 5 mm to 500 mm depending on the intended application and processing capability. Common diameter sizes are 5-50 mm. Bars above 50 mm diameter are called blooms or billets. Bars have excellent dimensional accuracy and tolerances of ±0.01-0.2 mm depending on the size as per national/international standards like ASTM, SAE, EN, etc.
Applications
Due to versatility in mechanical properties and shapes, steel round bars find diverse applications:
– Automotive: Round bars are used to make axles, driveshafts, suspension parts, steering components requiring strength and precision. Alloy steel grades are preferred.
– Construction: Mild carbon steel round bars are used to make rebars, structural sections, scaffoldings requiring reasonable strength and fatigue resistance.
– Machinery: High strength round bars are used to fabricate machine components, spindles and shafts that undergo dynamic loading and have fatigue design.
– Infrastructure: Grade 420 steel round bars withstand forces in bridges, towers, retaining walls, hydraulic structures being resistant to corrosion.
– Hand Tools: Tool-quality round bars make handles, wrenches, pliers requiring impact toughness and wear resistance.
– Engineering: Round bars help make industrial equipment, valves, pumps parts where strength, durability and surface hardness are key.
– Fasteners: Non-corrosive stainless steel round bars are drawn to make bolts, screws with tight tolerances.
Manufacturing Process
Steel round bars are primarily manufactured through two main processes – rolling and forging.
1. Rolling:
– Steel ingots are heated to 1150-1250°C in soaking pits and rolled into rounds or billets of desired diameter through multi-stand reversing roughing and finishing mills.
– The hot rolled bars pass through cooling beds and saw-cutting units. Ends are cut to ensure straightness and size.
– Surface defects if any are removed through grinding. Bars are cut to required lengths.
2. Forging:
– Preheated steel billets at 1000-1200°C are compressed between dies of required diameter profile using hydraulic presses.
– The hot working imparts superior mechanical properties compared to rolling. Forged bars undergo similar post-processing as rolled ones.
Final Quality Checks
The produced round bars undergo stringent quality checks to meet specifications. Visual, dimensional and mechanical property tests like tensile test, hardness measurement, defect detection through UT, PT, MT ensure consistency and reliability in applications. Certified round bars are packed and stocked for local and global distribution.
In conclusion, steel round bars are versatile long products with diverse applications leveraging good mechanical properties, precision sizes and reliability. The steel manufacturing process helps economic mass production of round bars meeting standards for engineered parts fabrication. Quality control ensures consistency for trouble-free performance in safety-critical sectors.
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- Source: Coherent Market Insights, Public sources, Desk research
- We have leveraged AI tools to mine information and compile it