Dynamic explicit FE modeling of hot ring rolling process

A new FE modeling method of hot ring rolling was presented by solving key technologies such as contact and heat boundary conditions,motion control over guide rolls,and mass scaling.The method has the following features:1)the elastic-plastic dynamic explicit approach instead of the static implicit approach is adopted to solve the process so as to greatly improve computational efficiency without sacrificing computational accuracy;2)the coupled thermal-mechanical effect is considered as opposed to the conventional isothermal assumption,which is more practical;3)in contrast to the simplified 2D or local 3D ring model,the full 3D ring is modeled to simulate the process.Based on the FE modeling method,two cases of hot plain ring rolling are simulated in the FEA software ABAQUS/Explicit.The simulation results are compared with the experimental measurements and the good agreement between them is observed regarding the material flow and the temperature distribution of the ring.

Effects of Austempering after Hot Deformation on the Mechanical Properties of Hot Rolled Si-Mn TRIP Steel Sheets

Excellent mechanical properties are obtained by austempering after hot deformation without subsequent heat treatment in the present Si-Mn TRIP steel sheets. Isothermal holding time after finishing rolling has affected the mechanical properties of this steel. The results show that the sample exhibits a good combination of ultimate tensile strength and total elongation when it is held at the bainite transformation temperature after hot deformation. The stability of retained austenite increases with an increase of isothermal holding time, and a further increase in the holding duration results in a decrease of it. The tensile strength, total elongation and strength ductility reach the maximum values (774MPa, 33% and 25542MPa% respectively) for this sort of hot rolled Si-Mn TRIP steel using the optimal technology.

Comparison of evolution laws of stress and strain fields in hot rolling of titanium alloy large rings with different sizes

For hot rolling of titanium alloy large rings,evolution laws of stress and strain fields in rings with various sizes were explored and compared based on a reliable coupled thermo-mechanical three-dimensional （3D） finite element （FE） model.The results show that for forming processes of different rings,as γ^-（the equivalent distribution ratio of feed amount per revolution of a process） decreases,the final peak Mises stress may transfer from the biting point at the driver roll side to that at the idle roll side,and the final peak equivalent plastic strain may transfer from the outside surface to the inside surface;as L^- （the equivalent deformation zone length of a process） increases,the final peak Mises stress may appear in the middle layer.The final positions of peak Mises stress and equivalent plastic strain are the combined effects of the above two aspects.In the deformation zone of a deformed ring,the surface layers are in the 3D compressive stress state,while the middle layer is in the 1D compressive and 2D tensile stress state or 2D compressive and 1D tensile stress state;the whole ring is in the 1D compressive and 2D tensile strain state.

拱塔斜拉桥预应力索塔锚固区节段应力分析

某桥为主跨260 m三塔双索面预应力混凝土拱塔斜拉桥,采用空间有限元法对5种荷载工况下索塔锚固区节段应力进行分析。结果表明:空心矩形索塔内布置双向井字形预应力筋能够有效抵消斜拉索水平分力产生的拉应力;索力及预应力分别作用下,距离基准节段中心分别为1.2 m和1.5 m范围内,应力呈现渐进衰减趋势;设计计算中可通过控制侧墙与倒角交界处、斜拉索出口处以及锚块与塔壁交界等处混凝土应力,来控制整个索塔锚固区的应力分布。

Research on vibration response characteristics and evolution law of finishing rolling in hot strip mills

In this study,a comprehensive rolling mill vibration test program was designed,including specific test conditions and a test system.The analysis of measured signals reveals the vibration response characteristics and their evolution at different gauge points in the finishing mill.This is particularly evident during abnormal rolling,where the signals highlight the characteristics of abnormal responses and vibration intensities.Abnormal vibrations during the rolling process mainly occur when the strip thickness is less than 2.5 mm,and at the rolling speed-up stage,the strong abnormal vibration occurs at each measuring point on the F2 transmission side.The maximum vibration intensity of the backup roll’s bearing seat is 17 mm/s.As the rolling progresses,the stress on the bolts changes.The strip thickness is negatively correlated with the peak values of bite and tail-flick impacts.The vibration characteristics vary with the strip thickness and the process state.

Deformation mechanism of cold ring rolling in view of texture evolution predicted by a newly proposed polycrystal plasticity model

An explicit polycrystal plasticity model was proposed to investigate the deformation mechanism of cold ring rolling in view of texture evolution. The model was created by deducing a set of linear incremental controlling equations within the framework of crystal plasticity theory. It was directly solved by a linear algorithm within a two-level procedure so that its efficiency and stability were guaranteed. A subroutine VUMAT for ABAQUS/Explicit was developed to combine this model with the 3D FE model of cold ring rolling. Results indicate that the model is reliable in predictions of stress-strain response and texture evolution in the dynamic complicated forming process; the shear strain in RD of the ring is the critical deformation mode according to the sharp Goss component （{110}？100？） of deformed ring; texture and crystallographic structure of the ring blank do not affect texture type of the deformed ring;texture evolves rapidly at the later stage of rolling, which results in a dramatically increasing deformation of the ring.

Online application of automatic surface quality inspection system to finishing line of cold rolled strips

An automatic surface quality inspection system installed on a finishing lineof cold rolled strips is introduced. The system is able to detect surface defects on cold rolledstrips, such as scratches, coil breaks, rusts, roll imprints, and so on. Multiple CCD area scancameras were equipped to capture images of strip surface simultaneously. Defects were detectedthrough 'Dark-field illumination' which is generated by LED illuminators. Parallel computationtechnique and fast processing algorithms were developed for real-time data processing. Theapplication to the production line shows that the system is able to detect defects effectively.

Microstructure and anisotropy of mechanical properties in ring rolled AZ80-Ag alloy

The microstructure,anisotropy in tensile strength and tensile creep resistance of the ring rolled AZ80-Ag alloy were studied.The ring exhibited higher strength along rolling direction(RD)than transverse direction(TD).The microstructure characterization and texture analysis demonstrated that the tilted basal texture was responsible for the higher tensile performance along RD.Investigations on the creep anisotropy revealed that the samples along RD had lower creep resistance,higher creep strain and higher steady creep rate at 70−80 MPa,compared with that along TD.The nominal creep stress exponent(n)values,1.13 for RD and 3.86 for TD,indicated that diffusional creep and dislocation climb were the two corresponding creep mechanisms.During creep of the alloy,Mg_(17)Al_(12) phase discontinuous precipitations were witnessed and their volume fraction enhanced with increasing stress.

Effect of annealing cooling rate on microstructure and mechanical property of 100Cr6 steel ring manufactured by cold ring rolling process

Pre-heat treatment is a vital step before cold ring rolling and it has significant effect on the microstructure and mechanical properties of rolled rings.The 100Cr6 steel rings were subjected to pre-heat treatment and subsequent cold rolling process.Scanning electron microscopy and tensile tests were applied to investigate microstructure characteristic and mechanical property variations of 100Cr6 steel rings undergoing different pre-heat treatings.The results indicate that the average diameter of carbide particles,the tensile strength and hardness increase,while the elongation decreases with the decrease of cooling rate.The cooling rate has minor effect on the yield strength of sample.After cold ring rolling,the ferrite matrix shows a clear direction along the rolling direction.The distribution of cementite is more homogeneous and the cementite particles are finer.Meanwhile,the hardness of the rolled ring is higher than that before rolling.

Microstructural evolution and enhanced mechanical properties of Mg?Gd?Y?Zn?Zr alloy via centrifugal casting, ring-rolling and aging

A ring-shaped Mg?8.5 Gd?4 Y?1 Zn?0.4 Zr(wt%) alloy was manufactured via centrifugal casting and ring-rolling process. The effects of accumulative ring-rolling reduction amount on the microstructure, texture, and tensile properties of the alloy were investigated. The results indicate that the microstructure of centrifugal cast alloy consists of equiaxed grains and network-like eutectic structure present at grain boundaries. The ring-rolled alloy exhibits a characteristic bimodal microstructure composed of fine dynamic recrystallized(DRXed) grains with weak basal texture and coarse un-DRXed grains with strong basal texture, along with the presence of LPSO phase. With increasing amount of accumulative ring-rolling reduction, the coarse un-DRXed grains are refined via the formation of increasing amount of fine DRXed grains. Meanwhile, the dynamic precipitation of Mg5 RE phase occurs, generating a dispersion strengthening effect. A superior combination of strength and ductility is achieved in the ring-rolled alloy after an accumulative rolling reduction of 80%. The tensile strength of this ring-rolled alloy after peak aging is further enhanced, reaching 511 MPa, while keeping a reasonable ductility. The salient strengthening mechanisms identified include the grain boundary strengthening of fine DRXed grains, dispersion strengthening of dynamic precipitated Mg;RE phase, short fiber strengthening of LPSO lamellae/rods, and precipitation strengthening of nano-sized prismatic β precipitates and basal γ precipitates.

STRESS ANALYSIS OF ROLL RING FOR HIGH SPEED WIRE ROLLING MILLS

This paper introduces a new method for fixing type of the tungsten carbide roll ring for high speed wire rolling mills, and analyses the stresses of the roll ring. The lifetime of roll pass is twice longer that of the old one.

Soft measurement model of ring's dimensions for vertical hot ring rolling process using neural networks optimized by genetic algorithm

Vertical hot ring rolling(VHRR) process has the characteristics of nonlinearity,time-variation and being susceptible to disturbance.Furthermore,the ring's growth is quite fast within a short time,and the rolled ring's position is asymmetrical.All of these cause that the ring's dimensions cannot be measured directly.Through analyzing the relationships among the dimensions of ring blanks,the positions of rolls and the ring's inner and outer diameter,the soft measurement model of ring's dimensions is established based on the radial basis function neural network(RBFNN).A mass of data samples are obtained from VHRR finite element(FE) simulations to train and test the soft measurement NN model,and the model's structure parameters are deduced and optimized by genetic algorithm(GA).Finally,the soft measurement system of ring's dimensions is established and validated by the VHRR experiments.The ring's dimensions were measured artificially and calculated by the soft measurement NN model.The results show that the calculation values of GA-RBFNN model are close to the artificial measurement data.In addition,the calculation accuracy of GA-RBFNN model is higher than that of RBFNN model.The research results suggest that the soft measurement NN model has high precision and flexibility.The research can provide practical methods and theoretical guidance for the accurate measurement of VHRR process.

Effect of sizes of forming rolls on cold ring rolling by 3D-FE numerical simulation

During cold ring rolling process, changing the sizes of forming rolls including driver roll and idle roll will lead to a change of amount of feed Ah and contact areas between ring blank and forming rolls, thus a change of the shape and dimension of deformation zone located in the gap of forming rolls is found. It has a significant effect on metal flow and the forming quality of deformed ring. So the size effect of forming rolls on cold ring rolling was investigated by three-dimensional dynamic explicit FEM under ABAQUS environment. The obtained results thoroughly reveal the influence laws of the sizes of forming rolls on the average spread, fishtail coefficient, degree of inhomogeneous deformation and force and power parameters etc not only provide an important basis for design of the forming rolls and optimization of cold ring rolling process, but also reveal the plastic deformation mechanism of cold ring rolling.

Role of Friction in Cold Ring Rolling

Cold ring rolling is an advanced but complex metal forming process under coupled effects with multi-factors, such as geometry sizes of rolls and ring blank, material, forming process parameters and friction, etc. Among these factors, friction between rolls and ring blank plays an important role in keeping the stable forming of cold ring rolling. An analytical method was firstly presented for proximately determining the critical friction coefficient of stable forming and then a method was proposed to determine the critical friction coefficient by combining analytical method with numerical simulation. And the influence of friction coefficient on the quality of end-plane and side spread of ring,rolling force, rolling moment and metal flow characteristic in the cold ring rolling process have been explored using the three dimensional （3D） numerical simulation based on the elastic-plastic dynamic finite element method （FEM） under the ABAQUS software environment, and the results show that increasing the friction on the contact surfaces between rolls and ring blank is useful not only for improving the stability of cold ring rolling but also for improving the geometry and dimension precision of deformed ring.

FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS FOR MICROSTRUCTURE EVOLUTION IN HOT FINISHING ROLLING OF STEEL STRIPS

A computer model that describes the evolution of microstructures during the hot finishing rolling of SS400 steel has been proposed. It has been found that the microstructure strongly depends on processing of materials and on their parameters, which affected the history of the thermomechanical variables, such as temperature, strain, and strain rate. To investigate the microstructural evolutions during the hot finishing rolling process, the rigid-thermoviscoplastic finite element method （FEM） has been combined with dynamic recrystallization, static recrystallization, and grain growth models. The simulation results show a good agreement with those from the prediction software online.

Effect of driver roll rotational speed on hot ring rolling of AZ31 magnesium alloy

Based on the ABAQUS/Explicit code,A 3D elastic-plastic and coupled thermo-mechanical FE model of radial ring rolling of AZ31 Magnesium alloy has been proposed to analyze the influence of rotational speed of driver roll to study the inhomogeneity distribution of strain and temperature,fishtail coefficient,rolling force parameters.The results show that:(1)when the rotational speed of driver roll n increases,the strain distribution of the rolled ring becomes less homogeneous,and the temperature distribution more homogeneous yet,and leading to an optimal n value;(2)the fishtail coefficient firstly decreases,then increases with the increase of n;(3)the rolling force,contact area and rolling moment gradually descend with the increase of n.

Thermo-mechanical coupled analysis of hot ring rolling process

A 3D rigid-plastic and coupled thermo-mechanical FE model for hot ring rolling(HRR) was developed based on DEFORM 3D software,then coupled heat transferring,material flow and temperature distribution of the ring in HRR were simulated and the effects of process parameters on them were analyzed.The results show that the deformation nonuniformity of ring blank increases with the increase of the rotational speed of driver roll and friction factor or the decrease of the feed rate of idle roll and initial temperature of ring blank.The temperature nonuniformity of ring blank decreases with the increase of the feed rate of idle roll or the decrease of initial temperature of ring blank and friction factor.There is an optimum rotational speed of driver roll under which the temperature distribution of ring blank is the most uniform.The results obtained can provide a guide for forming parameters optimization and quality control.

Modeling and Simulation of Radial-Axial Large Ring Rolling

Finite element model is constructed according to the principle and characteristics of radial-axial large ring rolling technology. Dynamic explicit finite element method is used to simulate the rolling process. An effective modeling method of guide roller is proposed. Simulation indicates that high quality ring product could be obtained when rational rotational speed of rollers and feed rate in the radial and axial rolling are assigned.

Hourglass Control in Dynamic Explicit Simulation of Cold Ring Rolling Process

Hourglass is remarkably aroused in ring rolling simulation with reduced integration element because of violent ring vibration and small contact area of ring with forming rollers. Hourglass energy can be reduced by improving mesh density. Combined approach of artificial damping and artificial stiffness can control the hourglass. A ring with rectangular section is simulated with the weight factor of artificial stiffness resistance set to 0.2. The artificial damping hourglass control coefficient is set to 0.1, and the artificial stiffness hourglass control coefficient is set to 0.001. The ratio of hourglass energy to internal energy is reduced to 2.5 percent. Compared with axial spread width test, the effectiveness of hourglass control in ring rolling simulation is verified.

A Model to Predict Rolling Force of Finishing Stands with RBF Neural Networks

In view of intrinsic imperfection of traditional models of rolling force, in ord er to improve the prediction accuracy of rolling force, a new method combining radial basis function(RBF) neural networks with traditional models to predict rolling f orce was proposed. The off-line simulation indicates that the predicted results are much more accurate than that with traditional models.