Surface characterisation of electrical discharge pulse-mode textured cold work rolls

The thickness of steel sheets is usually reduced by passing the cold coil through rolls in a cold mill. These work rolls have a distinct surface texture, often generated by electrical discharge texturing (EDT). When the sheets pass through these work rolls, the texture of the work rolls will be imparted on the surface of the sheets. This surface characteristic may influence the sheet's paint appearance and the retention of lubricant. The paper aims to determine the main effects and interactions of EDT processing parameters and to characterise the textured roll surfaces using stylus and white light interferometry (WLI) techniques with respect to surface properties. It has been discovered that work roll polarity, texturing power and on-time had an impact on roughness average and peak count. It was revealed that skewness and kurtosis values were not affected by changes in the texturing process settings.