In this paper, the influence of major hot rolling process parameters on strain hardening exponent and grain size as criteria for the formability of Nb-microalloyed steel sheet was investigated and an optimum level of parameters by using Taguchi grey relational analysis has been obtained. For this purpose, parameters of roughing, finishing and coiling temperatures were chosen and four levels for these temperatures were considered. Sixteen experiments for each response were conducted based on an orthogonal array of the Taguchi method. Analysis of variance, signal to noise ratios and grey relational grade were calculated in order to optimize strain hardening exponent and grain size of Nb-microalloyed steel sheets, simultaneously. It was observed that the roughing temperature of 1 050 °C; finishing temperature of 850 °C; and coiling temperature of 700 °C are the optimum parameter values producing better formability in terms of strain hardening exponent and grain size. The validity of Taguchi grey relational analysis to process optimization was also well established by means of confirmation tests.
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