A study on the lubrication effects of nano‐TiO2 additive water‐based lubricants during rolling of ferritic stainless steel strips

Abstract In the present work, a comparison between traditional oil‐in‐water (O/W) based lubricant and nano‐TiO 2 additive water‐based lubricants was made to explore the lubrication effects during rolling of ferritic stainless steel (FSS) strips. The results show that marked reduction in rolling force and improvement in the surface quality can be achieved by utilisation of water‐based nanolubricant, which can be attributed to the synergism of rolling effect, mending effect, polishing effect and protection film. An optimal concentration of 3.0 wt% TiO 2 nanoparticles is found to exhibit excellent lubrication effects with sufficient nanoparticles at real contact regions without aggregation, leading to 10% reduction in the surface roughness during rolling of FSS strips.