Cold Working

Cold working of a metal is carried out below its recrystallisation temperature. Although normal room temperatures are ordinarily used for cold working of various types of steel, temperatures up to the recrystallisation range are sometimes used. In cold working, recovery processes are not effective.

Purpose Of Cold Working

The common purpose of cold working is given as under

1. Cold working is employed to obtain better surface finish on parts.

2. It is commonly applied to obtain increased mechanical properties.

3. It is widely applied as a forming process of making steel products using pressing and spinning.

4. It is used to obtain thinner material.

Precautions Followed In Cold Working

Cold working leads to crack formation and propagation if performed in excess and it should therefore be avoided. Residual stresses developed due to inhomogeneous deformation cause warping or distortion when the part is released from the tooling and during subsequent machining. Magnitude and distribution of residual stresses should therefore be controlled. Orange-peel and stretcher strains are material related types of roughness defects found on surfaces not touched by tooling. The former can be avoided by using fine grained sheets and latter is minimized by temper rolling or stretching the strip to prevent localized yielding.