Technology suitable for both serial and small quantity production

Rolling is a fabrication process in which the metal is passed through a pair of rolls. There are two types of rolling process, flat and profile rolling. In flat rolling the final shapes of the product are foil (thickness less than 1 mm), sheet (thickness less than 3 mm) or plate (thickness more than 3 mm). In profile rolling, the final product may be a round rod or other shaped bar. This process is gaining an increasing interest if the foil or sheet metal used for subsequent production processes like bending, punching, etc. is having a defined shape of the surface (tailored tape) in order to enable more complex products to be manufactured.

Rolling is also classified according to the temperature of the metal rolled. If the temperature of the metal is above its recrystallisation temperature then the process is termed as hot rolling, If the temperature of metal is below its recrystallisation temperature the process is termed as cold rolling. If metallic foils have to be produced, the first process is not suitable due to the large surface to volume ratio yielding high oxidation.

Another approach is the cold forming of sections by rolling technology where continuously metal sheet or foil is formed by several rolls. As a result of the used bending process, at microscale problems like springback depending on the foil thickness have to be considered.