Dear Colleagues,

Rolling is one of the most important bulk forming technologies, where rollers are an important part and represent a large cost factor in rolling mills. Rollers are thermally fatigued over numerous cycles due to the high temperatures attained during contact with hot workpieces and subsequent water spray cooling.

There has been much debate about the thermal fatigue of roller steel and inconsistencies during testing. Due to different testing setups and testing rigs it is difficult to directly compare the results from different research groups. Although the pathways to results are often not comparable, the investigation of damages and surface-layer degradation characterization tell similar stories. It is often found that crack nucleation, crack propagation (growth), their linking and subsequent material spalling, as well as material oxidation are related to the microstructure and more specifically to the properties of carbides present in roller steel. Studies of complex phenomena linking nucleation, growth, and oxidation and their interlinked effects leading to surface-layer damage based on observations provide a better understanding of degradation mechanisms and their temperature-related intensity. This is considered to be of fundamental importance and of technological industrial relevance.

Dr. David Bombac
Guest Editor

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• roller steel
• thermal fatigue
• microstructure
• oxidation
• crack nucleation and propagation
• material degradation