Application of Brush Roller in Surface Cleaning of Copper Alloy Plate and Strip

The production process of copper strip material generally includes ingot heating, hot rolling, milling, rough rolling, edge cutting, bell furnace annealing, surface cleaning (intermediate cleaning), pre finishing rolling, unfolding continuous annealing, finishing rolling, surface cleaning (finished product cleaning), tension bending and straightening, shearing, packaging, and warehousing. The intermediate cleaning after bell type annealing treatment mainly involves removing metal oxides and residual ash on the surface of the strip. Continuous annealing generally involves degreasing and cleaning to prevent residual lubricant from contaminating the annealing furnace. The main task of cleaning the finished product after bright annealing and rolling is to meet the user's requirements for surface cleaning quality.
Grinding cleaning is generally configured simultaneously with acid cleaning, which removes the reaction layer left by acid cleaning on the surface of copper strip and polishes the surface of the strip. Modern continuous cleaning lines are equipped with grinding cleaning equipment. The high-speed rotating grinding brush roller, supported by the reverse pressure roller and washed with a large amount of water, uniformly and stably grinds the surface of the strip, achieving a relatively high surface quality. At present, the grinding brush roller has become a key tool for cleaning copper and copper alloy strips. It is produced by professional manufacturers both domestically and internationally. According to different copper alloy varieties, surface conditions, and strip conditions, selecting the appropriate brush roller wire diameter, abrasive mesh size, and hardness are the key to the grinding effect.
At present, there are two basic forms of grinding brush rollers. One is a grinding brush roller made by coating abrasive particles such as aluminum oxide on nylon or polyamide fibers; One type is a grinding roller developed by 3M Company in the United States, which is composed of abrasive particles added to non-woven fabrics. The wire diameter of the brush roller suitable for surface grinding of general copper and copper alloy strips is generally within Φ Between 0.25 and 0.35mm, the number of abrasive particles ranges from 500 to 600 mesh. For strip materials with high requirements for surface polishing quality, non-woven cloth grinding rollers with a mesh size of 1500-2000 and a hardness between 40-60 are generally selected. It should be pointed out that the higher the mesh size of the grinding roller, the higher the cost and shorter the service life. In production, brush rollers, grinding rollers, and abrasive mesh size should be reasonably selected based on the technical requirements of different products, and production costs should be minimized as much as possible while ensuring the surface quality of the strip.
In addition, in order to improve the surface quality of the strip billet during the production process, a 220 grit grinding stone is also used to clean the small defects such as peeling and pricking that appear on the strip billet, which has a considerable effect on improving the quality of the strip billet.
The adjustment of the contact pressure, grinding amount, and brush roller speed of the strip during brush grinding is the key to the quality of brush grinding. Generally, increasing the speed of the brush roller and reducing the contact pressure is beneficial for extending the service life of the brush roller and improving the polishing effect. Therefore, in actual production, it should be set according to the surface quality of the strip and the wear of the brush roller, to avoid excessive brush grinding under high speed and large contact pressure.