Before souring steel materials for a project, you should to know the differences between the different types of steel, How it is used and what are the advantages and disadvantages. Then you can make a decision and choose the right product for your project.
Below we will discuss a pretty common question: what’s the different between Hot Rolled Steel and Cold Rolled Steel, their advantage and disadvantage, etc
Cold Rolled Steel and Hot Rolled Steel
1 , Differences in rolling process:
Hot rolling is a metallurgical process that mainly to produce steel sheet or Steel Plate, after being passed between a set of work rolls, the billets are simply deformed or cut into steel plate, and the rolling temperatures would be over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Cold rolling is another metal working process at temperatures that are close to normal room temperature, deform metal by passing it through rollers. Cold rolling often used to decrease the thickness of steel plate or steel sheet, and increase the metal’s yield strength and hardness.
2 , Advantage and disadvantage: Hot Rolled Steel vs. Cold Rolled Steel
The cold rolled steel is more precise dimensionally than a hot rolled product that created by hot rolling process, The cold rolled steel has already gone through the cooling process, which help it closer to the finished dimension.
However, the shapes of cold rolled steel is limited because of these properties, round, square, flat and variations of those types of shapes. If with small transverse dimension and uniform cross section, other shapes can also be cold rolled.
During the cooling process, Hot rolled steel re-configures itself, which giving the finished product looser tolerances than the original material. Compared with cold rolled steel products, Hot rolled steel is more malleable, allowing it to be forced into a variety of different shapes.
3 Cost of Hot Rolled Steel vs. Cold Rolled Steel
Generally, the cost of cold rolled steel could be twice as much as the cost of hot rolled steel, as cold rolling is a More complex metal working process than hot rolling
There is also another finishing between hot rolling process and cold rolling process, Pickled and Oiled. By being pickled in acid and oiled, the mill scale on the hot rolled steel can be removed and protect it from rusting. Picking and oiling cost is somewhere in between regular hot rolling and cold rolling.
4 usage of Hot Rolled Steel and Cold Rolled Steel
Hot rolled steel always used to create larger size products, as those larger products need to be in more distinct shapes. Hot Rolled Coil is produced as a feedstock for Cold Rolled Coil and coated coil, but also for immediate use in a variety of industrial applications including Steel Tubes used in transport, shipbuilding, construction, gas containers, pressure vessels and energy pipelines.
And Smaller products need to be more durable and tolerant, always created by the Cold Rolled Steel. Cold Rolled Steel is a ‘flat’ steel product. The material is manufactured from Hot Rolled Steel, with further thickness reduction performed on a strip mill without the use of heat. The application of cold rolled steel including: Automotive components, Bathtubs, Construction and building components, Domestic appliances, Electrical goods, Furniture, etc
If you are still not so sure about what kind of steel can meet your project requirements, please feel free to contact us, our professional sales engineer will help you, offer you advice and suggestions, our best solutions for your reference.