Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Applied System Innovation

IEEE-ICASI 2017 - Meen, Prior & Lam (Eds)

Optimization of Spheroidized Annealing Process Parameters on AISI 10B21 Steel

Wire Using Taguchi Approach
Chih-Cheng Yang1,a and Shih-Ting Wang2,b and Jung-Tai Tsai2,c

Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, Kao Yuan University

1
2
Graduate School of Fasteners Industry Technology, Kao Yuan University
1821 Chung-Shan Road, Lu-Chu, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 82151, R.O.C.
Tel: 886-7-6077027, Fax: 886-7-6077112, E-mail: a t30043@cc.kyu.edu.tw, bs986350236@gmail.com, cfantays39@gmail.com

Abstract increase in accumulated strains in the equal channel angular

Recent development in fastener industry has heightened the
need for steel wire coil. The wire usually has to be annealed to
improve its cold formability. The quality of spheroidizing
annealed wire affects the forming quality of screws. Various
parameters affect the quality of spheroidized annealing such as
spheroidized annealing temperature, prolonged heating time,
furnace cooling temperature. The effects of spheroidized
annealing parameters affect the quality characteristics, such as
tensile strength, hardness and ductility. A series of
experimental tests on AISI 10B21 steel wire is carried out in a
vacuum drying oven and Taguchi method is used to obtain
optimum spheroidized annealing conditions to improve the
mechanical properties of steel wires for cold forming. The
results show experimentally that spheroidized annealing
temperature is the main factor to influence the mechanical
properties of AISI 10B21 steel wires.
Key words: Spheroidized annealing, formibility, Taguchi
method
Introduction
Spheroidizing treatment on steel wire coils influences the
cold formability for manufacturing fastener. The wire is
generally produced by drawing wire coil to wire which is
required to soften before cold heading [1-2]. With increasing
motion of dislocation, the yield strength, tensile strength and
hardness increase but the ductility decreases and approaches
zero [3]. Once the material is deformed continuously until the
yield point is passed, material will lead to brittle fracture. In
order to improve the cold formability and the mechanical
properties of the wire, the drawn wire must go through
annealing process [1]. By removing the effects of internal stress
and enhancing ductility, it increases the cold formability and
reduces the forming impact force.
Many studies on the mechanisms and kinetics of
spheroidization had been proposed [4-8]. O’Brien and Hosford
[4] investigated spheroidization of medium carbon steels, AISI
1541 and AISI 4037, used in the bolt industry with two process
cycles, intercritical cycle and subcritical cycle. Introducing
defects in the cementite by severe plastic deformation is one of
effective methods to increase the spheroidization speed. Hono
et al. [5] revealed that the cementites in a near eutectic steel
spheroidizes more easily after a severe drawing. Shin et al. [6]
studied the enhanced spheroidization kinetics in terms of
carbon dissolution from cementites and defects induced in
cementites by the severe plastic deformation, and revealed that
pressed steel decreased the spheroidization temperature and
time. Gul’ et al. [7] developed a new method for more intense
spheroidization of cementite to accelerate spheroidization.
Spheroidization is produced by nonisothermal holding at high
temperatures, by means of an internal heat source. Prior
empirical research demonstrates that Taguchi method is useful
for improving the quality of steel wire for cold heading [8]. The
results show that the spheroidized annealing temperature and
prolonged heating time have the greatest effect on the
mechanical properties of steel wires.
In bolt Industry, most companies were using a subcritical
process for spheroidized annealing, simply heating to below the
lower critical and holding. A cold heading quality AISI 10B21
steel wire is usually used to manufacture welding bolts and
flange weld nuts for automotive fasteners. The wire has to be
spheroidize annealed after drawing wire coil (9.0mm) to the
size with section-area reductions of about 23.3%, with
mechanical properties of 70.0 kgf/mm2 tensile strength, 27.6%
ductility and 231HV hardness.
The quality of spheroidizing annealed wire affects the
forming quality of screws. Various parameters affect the
quality of spheroidized annealing, such as spheroidized
annealing temperature, prolonged heating time and furnace
cooling temperature. The effects of spheroidized annealing
parameters affect the quality characteristics of wires, such as
tensile strength, ductility and hardness. In this study, a series of
experimental tests on AISI 10B21 steel wire is carried out in a
vacuum drying oven (CVM-20S) and Taguchi method is used
to obtain optimum spheroidized annealing conditions to
improve the mechanical properties of steel wires for cold
forming.
Optimum Experiment
In this study, a series of experimental tests on AISI 10B21
low carbon steel wire is carried out in a vacuum drying oven.
The chemical composition is listed in Table 1.
Table 1
Chemical composition of AISI 10B21 low carbon steel wires (wt.%).
C Mn P S Si Al B
0.19 0.87 0.019 0.006 0.05 0.038 0.002
Three process parameters with three levels, as listed in Table
2, are chosen as the experimental factors in this study. Every
factor has three levels to spheroidize wire to evaluate the

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Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Applied System Innovation
IEEE-ICASI 2017 - Meen, Prior & Lam (Eds)

mechanical properties of wire. The parameters of Level 2 are
the original spheroidized annealing process conditions.
Table 2
Experimental factors and their levels for L9 orthogonal array
process and transformed to S/N ratio (signal to noise ratio). The
main quality characteristic is tensile strength with a nominal
value of 41 kgf/mm2. The S/N ratio for the nominal-the-best
response is [9]

Factor Level 1 Level 2 Level 3


S / N  10 log μ  m2  S 2 ,  (1)
Spheroidized
A annealing 705 720 725 where  is average of each test result, m is nominal value, and S
temperature (C) is standard deviation.
Prolonged heating Spheroidizing provides the needed ductility for cold heading.
B 7 6 5.5 Through spheroidize annealing, the ductility of steel wire may
time (hr)
Furnace cooling be improved, and the hardness may be reduced as well.
C 500 450 400 Therefore, the ductility is larger-the-better characteristic and
temperature (C)
the S/N ratio is [9]
The orthogonal array table, L9(34), is used as experimental
n
design for these three factors [9], as listed in Table 3.
1 / y 2
i
Table 3 S / N  10 log i 1
. (2)
L9(34) orthogonal array experimental parameter assignment. n

A: B: C: where yi is final ductility (f) of each specimen and n is test

Spheroidized Prolonged Furnace cooling number; while the hardness is smaller-the-better characteristic
X
annealing heating time temperature and the S/N ratio is [9]
temperature (°C) (hr) (°C)
L1 705 7 500 
S / N  10 log μ 2  S 2 .  (3)
L2 705 6 450
L3 705 5.5 400 where  is average of each test result and S is standard
L4 720 7 450 deviation.
L5 720 6 400
L6 720 5.5 500 Results and Discussion
L7 725 7 400
L8 725 6 500 The experimental results of tensile strength, ductility and
L9 725 5.5 450 hardness (average and standard deviation) and S/N ratio are
shown in Table 4. The tensile strength varies from 40.17 to
Three quality characteristics of spheroidized annealing wire, 40.93 kgf/mm2, the ductility varies from 26.8% to 32.6% and
tensile strength, ductility and hardness, are investigated. Each the hardness varies from 121.4 to 133.5 HV.
test result, including five specimens, followed by each fabricate

Table 4
The test results and S/N ratios for tensile strength, ductility and hardness

Exp. Tensile strength Ductility (f) Hardness

 S/N   S/N
No S S S/N ratio S
(kgf/mm2) ratio (%) (HV) ratio
L1 40.41 0.14 4.35 32.6 0.46 30.27 126.6 3.15 -42.05
L2 40.48 0.14 5.37 32.0 1.95 30.06 131.3 5.72 -42.37
L3 40.17 0.43 0.54 32.5 2.00 30.19 131.9 4.82 -42.41
L4 40.34 0.39 2.31 27.7 0.43 28.85 132.8 4.63 -42.47
L5 40.46 0.21 4.69 28.2 0.37 29.01 131.8 5.49 -42.41
L6 40.64 0.61 3.05 27.9 0.83 28.89 131.7 6.29 -42.40
L7 40.79 0.25 9.67 26.8 0.71 28.56 121.4 4.48 -41.69
L8 40.84 0.19 12.10 27.7 0.68 28.85 133.5 8.19 -42.52
L9 40.93 0.29 10.51 26.8 0.34 28.57 131.9 5.01 -42.41

A. Tensile Strength
Fig. 1 illustrates the factor response diagram and the level
averages of three factors with respect to the S/N ratio. For each
factor, the effect is the range of the level averages and the
maximum level average is the optimum level [9]. It is
obviously revealed that, for the three factors, the original
levels (Level 2) are not the optimum fabricating parameters to
obtain the target tensile strength. The spheroidized annealing
temperature (A) is obviously a significant factors and the
optimum conditions is A3 (spheroidized annealing

710 - ISBN 978-1-5090-4897-7

 Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Applied System Innovation
IEEE-ICASI 2017 - Meen, Prior & Lam (Eds)

temperature, 725C). The S/N ratios of the other two factors,

prolonged heating time (B) and furnace cooling temperature
(C), are relatively small, and the optimum conditions are B2
(prolonged heating time, 6.0 hr) and C1 (furnace cooling
temperature, 500C), respectively.

Fig. 3 The factor response diagram for hardness.

With the optimum analysis for the quality characteristics,

tensile strength, ductility and hardness, the optimum
conditions are shown in Table 5. The factors of spheroidized
annealing temperature (A) are obviously significant for both
tensile strength and ductility. The main quality characteristic is
Fig. 1 The factor response diagram for tensile strength. tensile strength and its responded effect is also larger. Thus,
the optimum conditions are determined as A3 (spheroidized
B. Ductility annealing temperature, 725C). The factor of prolonged
The factor response diagram and the level averages of three heating time (B) is significant only for hardness thus B1
factors with respect to the S/N ratio is illustrated in Fig. 2. For (prolonged heating time, 7 hr) is determined. The factor of
the three factors, the original levels (Level 2) are not the furnace cooling temperature (C) is not significant for factors,
optimum fabricating parameters to obtain the optimum level C1 (furnace cooling temperature, 500C), is determined.
ductility. The spheroidized annealing temperature (A) is
obviously a significant factors and the optimum conditions is Table 5
A1 (spheroidized annealing temperature, 705C). The S/N Optimum condition table for spheroidized annealing.
ratios of the other two factors, prolonged heating time (B) and
furnace cooling temperature (C), are relatively small, and the Factor Tensile strength Ductility Hardness Optimum
optimum conditions are B2 (prolonged heating time, 6.0 hr) A A3* A1* A3 A3
and C1 (furnace cooling temperature, 500C), respectively. B B2 B2 B1* B1
C C1 C1 C3 C1
*: significant factor.

D. Confirmation Experiments
In order to confirm the robust design of results, wire is
fabricated followed the optimum conditions. Figs. 4~6 show
the original and optimum probability distributions for tensile
strength, ductility and hardness of wire, respectively.

Fig. 2 The factor response diagram for ductility.

C. Hardness
As the factor response shown in Fig. 3, the original levels
are not the optimum fabricating parameters to obtain the
optimum hardness. The factor of prolonged heating time (B)
responds the highest effect and the optimum conditions is B1
(prolonged heating time, 7.0 hr). The effects of the other two
factors, spheroidized annealing temperature (A) and furnace
cooling temperature (C), are smaller, and the optimum
conditions are A3 (spheroidized annealing temperature,
725C) and C3 (furnace cooling temperature, 400C),
respectively. Fig. 4 The probability distribution diagram for tensile strength.

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Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Applied System Innovation
IEEE-ICASI 2017 - Meen, Prior & Lam (Eds)
Fig. 5 The probability distribution diagram for ductility.
Fig. 6 The probability distribution diagram for hardness.
As comparing with the original results, as shown in Fig. 4,
the optimum mean tensile strength of 40.94 kgf/mm2 is not
only closer to the nominal value, but also decreases the
deviation about 58%. The optimum mean ductility of 26.03%
is slightly smaller than the original mean ductility of 27.63%,
as shown in Fig. 5. As illustrated in Fig. 6, the optimum mean
hardness of 131.00 HV is slightly decreased as compared with
the original mean hardness of 132.2 HV, and also the
deviation decreases about 49% as comparing with the original
result. The optimum results evidently improve the hardness
and the strength of wire, therefore, the formability of wire is
improved.
712 - ISBN 978-1-5090-4897-7
Conclusion
The quality of spheroidize annealed steel wire affects the
forming quality of screws. Three factors affect the quality of
spheroidized annealing, such as spheroidized annealing
temperature, prolonged heating time and furnace cooling
temperature. The effects of spheroidized annealing conditions
affect the quality characteristics of wire, tensile strength,
ductility and hardness. In this study, Taguchi method is used to
obtain optimum spheroidized annealing conditions to improve
the mechanical properties of AISI 10B21 low carbon steel
wire. The main quality characteristic of spheroidized
annealing wire is tensile strength with a nominal value of 41
kgf/mm2. It is experimentally revealed that spheroidized
annealing temperature (A) is the significant factor; the
optimum conditions are spheroidized annealing temperature
as 725C, prolonged heating time as 7 hr and furnace cooling
temperature as 500C; and the optimum mean tensile strength
is 40.94 kgf/mm2, the optimum mean ductility of 26.03%, the
optimum mean hardness is 131.1 HV. The qualities of
mechanical properties are obviously improved, and so the
formability. The results may be used as a reference for
wire-manufacturers.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the support of Jinn
Her Enterprise Co., Ltd., Koahsiung, Taiwan for providing the
materials to carry out the spheroidized annealing experimental
work.
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