The temperature distribution and underlying cooling mechanism of steel wire rod in the Stelmor type cooling process

The temperature distribution within wire ring during the Stelmor type cooling process has been investigated to understand the underlying cooling mechanism of steel wire rod using the well-designed off-line simulator and numerical simulation. The temperature deviation within wire ring varied with increasing air velocity and the maximum temperature deviation occurred at the air velocity of 10 m/s. Interestingly, the middle and inner edge regions of wire ring had a higher cooling rate than the center region under the air blowing cooling conditions because the air velocity around middle and inner edge regions was higher than that around center region. The cooling behavior of edge region is highly related to the ring pitch: the cooling rate of edge region dramatically decreased with decreasing ring pitch due to the more complicated ring structure. The proposed empirical equations as a function of wire diameter and air velocity can predict the cooling rates of wire ring well at both center and edge regions, which is a great benefit in industrial applications.