Case Studies

Improving the quality of metal wire, and achieving a lower frequency of replacing rollers.

Overview

Guide rollers as shown in the figure are used in the process of manufacturing metal wire. Since the wire travels at high speeds, high levels of tension act on the guide rollers and wear down their surfaces. As a result, there was a need to frequently replace components. This therefore requires that guide rollers have a high degree of hardness as well as have smooth surfaces.

Challenge

Quality of the metal wire degrading due to guide roller surface wear

Metal components had conventionally been used in guide rollers.
However, since their surfaces tend to wear easily through contact with the metal wire, surface roughness would worsen. This surface roughness on the guide rollers would then scratch the metal wire when coming in contact, thus affecting product quality.

Conditions
・High degree of hardness, wear resistance required

Solution

Use hard ceramics in guide rollers

To be able to manufacture metal wire of high quality over the long-term, we switched from metal as the material used in guide rollers to high-hardness ceramics to achieve higher wear resistance.

Result

Improved long-term metal wire quality

By switching to ceramics, which are harder than metals, there was less occurrence of scratching as a result of guide roller surface wear. This resulted in less scratching from contact between the metal wire and guide rollers, contributing to higher quality production.
Furthermore, with improved wear resistance, rollers required less frequent replacement, alleviating maintenance work.

*Structures in the pictures and animation have been simplified.
*Material property can change depending on operating conditions.

Case Studies