International Journal of Modern Physics B Vol. 22, Nos.

31 & 32 (2008) 56555660 World Scientific Publishing Company

A NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF STRIP PROFILE IN A 6-HIGH COLD ROLLING MILL

XIAOZHONG DU1, QUAN YANG2 National Engineering Research Center for Advanced Rolling Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, P. R. CHINA, xiaozhong_du@hotmail.com; yangquan@nercar.ustb.edu.cn CHENG LU3, ANH KIET TIEU4 School of Mechanical, Materials & Mechatronic Engineering, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, 2500, AUSTRALIA, cheng_lu@uow.edu.au; ktieu@uow.edu.au SHINIL KIM5 Technical Research Laboratories, POSCO, Gumho-dong, Gwangyang-si, Jeonnam, 545-090, KOREA, shinil@uow.edu.au Received 15 June 2008 Revised 23 June 2008 Shape control is always a key issue in the six-high rolling mill, in which the shifting of the intermediate roll and the work roll have been used to enhance the shape control capability. In this paper, a finite element method (FEM) model has been developed to simultaneously simulate the strip deformation and the roll stack deformation for the six-high rolling mill. The effects of the work-roll bending, the shifting of the intermediate roll and the work roll on the strip crown and edge drop are discussed in details. Results have shown that both higher bending force and more roll shifting will significantly reduce the strip crown. The edge drop is also reduced with the bending force and the roll shifting. Keywords: Rolling; shape control; crown; edge drop; HC; FEM.

1. Introduction The control of the strip profile and flatness still remains unsatisfactory in tandem cold mill (TCM) with more stringent demand on the quality of cold rolled strip. A number of technologies, including continuous variable crown (CVC) roll, pair cross (PC) roll, sixhigh rolling mill, variable crown (VC) roll etc., have been developed to improve the strip profile and flatness. The six-high rolling mill, also known as high crown (HC) rolling

Corresponding Author.

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mill, has been widely used in TCM. According to statistics, there were 19 TCMs with the yield of over 1 million tons built before 2007 in China, 16 of which have been entirely or partly equipped with HC mill.1,2 In a HC rolling mill, a pair of intermediate rolls between work rolls and backup rolls can be shifted axially in opposite directions. A shifting of the intermediate rolls can increase the bending ability of the work rolls and the flatness control ability of the mill.3 Other advantages of HC rolling mill include high reduction with small work roll diameter, zero work roll crown and small edge drop.4,5 The HC rolling mill exhibits a more complex roll stack deformation behaviour than a four-high rolling mill. Research effort has been focused on the simulation of roll stack deformation of a six-high rolling mill to obtain a better model to control the strip profile and flatness. Pawelski et al.6 and Wang3 have developed analytical models to analyze the roll stack deformation for a six-high rolling mill. Allwood7 has proposed a roll stack deformation model which considers the effect of horizontal roll offset. Hacquin et al. 8 have modeled the elastic deflection and flattening of the work roll using the finite element method (FEM). However, a detailed model of roll stack deformation for a sixhigh rolling mill, especially coupled with the strip deformation, is still lacking. In this paper, we have developed a finite element model to simulate the roll stack deformation coupled with strip deformation for the HC mill with work roll shifting, also called UCM mill. The effect of the intermediate roll shifting, work roll shifting and work roll bending on the strip profile will be discussed. 2. FEM Simulation

Fig. 1. FEM model for a six-high rolling mill.

The FEM model has been developed with the FEM package ANSYS/LS-DYNA. The mesh of the simulation model is shown in Fig.1. The total elements for strip, work roll, intermediate roll and backup roll are 80000, 85180, 8092 and 3700, respectively. The element type is SOLID164. Symmetric boundary conditions are applied to the central plane of the strip. The bending force is acted at the distance of 500mm from the edge of the work roll neck. The simulation parameters are shown in Table 1. To investigate the control capability of the strip profile in the six-high rolling mill, shifting of intermediate

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roll and work roll, and bending force have been investigated in the simulation. The adjustment ranges of these parameters are detailed in Table 1.
Table 1. Simulation arameters. Parameters Diameter of work roll (mm) Length of work roll (mm) Diameter of intermediate roll (mm) Length of intermediate roll (mm) Diameter of back up roll (mm) Length of back up roll (mm) Bending force of work roll (kN/Chock) Shifting of intermediate roll (mm) Shifting of work roll (mm) Work roll speed (m/min ) Entry thickness (mm) Exit thickness (mm)

300 2.5 1.85

3. Results and Discussion

2.1 2.0
Thickness, mm SHW=0mm, BFW=0kN

2.1 2.0 1.9 1.8 1.7 1.6 1.5

0 100 200 300 400 500 600
SHI=0mm, BFW=0kN

1.8 1.7 1.6 1.5

Distance to center of the strip, mm

Thickness, mm

1.9

SHI=0mm SHI=50mm SHI=100mm SHI=150mm SHI=200mm

SHW=0mm SHW=25mm SHW=50mm SHW=75mm SHW=100mm 0 100 200 300 400 500 600

Distance to center of the strip, mm

Fig. 2. Effect of the intermediate roll shifting (SHI) on the strip profile.

Fig. 3. Effect of the work roll shifting on the strip profile.

Fig.2 shows the effect of the intermediate roll shifting (SHI) on the strip profile without the bending force (BFW) and the work roll shifting (SHW). As expected, the typical convex profile is obtained for the case without shifting. The strip profile (thickness) decreases from the center to the edge of the strip due to deflection of the roll stack. A significant reduction of the profile can be observed near the edge of the strip. This phenomenon is called edge drop. The edge drop is mainly caused by a lateral mass flow and a smaller roll flattening near the strip edge. It is obvious that the intermediate roll shifting reduces significantly the thickness variation and can produce a flatter strip profile. The dependence of the strip profile on the work roll shifting is shown in Fig.3. With increased shifting, the profile in the middle of the strip tends to be flatter across the width, while the edge drop still exists although its value has been reduced. The effect of

001 002

Value 425 1500 490 1510 1330 1500 +360/-180

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the work roll shifting is similar to the intermediate roll shifting. As the work roll shifting increases, the thickness variation become smaller. The simulation results clearly indicate that both the intermediate roll shifting and the work roll shifting are effective tools to control the strip profile. Fig.4 depicts the effect of work roll bending on the strip profile. A positive bending force increases the roll crown, while the negative value reduces it. When the bending force is zero, the strip thickness decreases from the center to the edge of the strip due to deflection of the roll stack. With negative bending forces, the strip thickness variation increases with bending force. When the positive bending force is applied, the profile becomes concave. The profile deviation to the center increases as the bending force increases. Figs.2-4 demonstrate that the bending force has a larger adjustment capability than the shifting of the intermediate roll and work roll. The thickness at the distance of 40mm to the strip edge can be increased from 1.589mm to 1.971mm when the bending force is increased from 180kN to 360kN, while it is increased from 1.771mm to 1.846mm for intermediate roll shifting in Fig.2 and from 1.816mm to 1.839mm for work roll shifting in Fig.3.
2.1
SHI=0mm, SHW=0mm

2.0
Thickness, mm

1.9 1.8 1.7 1.6 1.5 0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Distance to center of the strip, mm

BFW=-180kN BFW=-90kN BFW=0kN BFW=180kN BFW=360kN

Fig. 4. Effect of the work roll bending force on the strip profile.

The strip crown and edge drop are often used to characterize the strip profile in the middle part of the strip and near the edge, respectively. The strip crown used in this paper is defined as the strip thickness difference between the thickness at the strip center and that at the distance of 40mm from the edge. The edge drop is defined as the strip thickness difference between the thickness at the distance of 100mm from the edge and that at the distance of 15mm. Figs.5(a) and 5(b) show the effect of intermediate roll shifting and the work roll shifting on strip crown and edge drop for three different bending forces (BFW=-180kN, 0kN and 360kN), respectively. The effect on the strip crown and the edge drop exhibits a similar pattern. It is clear that the strip crown and the edge drop decrease as the bending force increases. They also decrease with intermediate roll shifting and work roll shifting. For zero bending force, the effect of intermediate roll shifting and work roll shifting is close. When bending force is applied, the magnitudes of

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the strip crown and the edge drop caused by intermediate roll shifting is larger than those caused by work roll shifting. This indicates that the combination of the intermediate roll shifting and the work roll bending force provides a higher control capability of the strip profile than the work roll shifting with the work roll bending force.
Shifting of work roll (SHW), mm; SHI=0mm 0 25 50 75 100 BFW=-180kN

0.3

0.10 0.08 0.06

Edge drop, mm

Shifting of work roll (SHW), mm; SHI=0mm 0 25 50 75 100 SHI SHW BFW=-180kN BFW=0kN

SHI SHW

0.2
Strip crown, mm

0.04 0.02 0.00 -0.02 -0.04

BFW=360kN

0.1

BFW=0kN

0.0
BFW=360kN

-0.1 0 50 100 150 200

-0.06 0 50 100 150 200

Shifting of intermediate roll (SHI), mm; SHW=0mm

Shifting of intermediate roll (SHI), mm; SHW=0mm

( ) Strip crown;

(b) Edge drop

4. Field Application Based on the simulation results, a technical procedure was proposed and an online shape control model has been developed. It has been applied successfully to the five-stand UCM tandem cold mills in Wuhan Iron&Steel Corporation with very good results.
0.52

Average Thickness of Strip (mm)

Fig. 6. Transverse Distribution of Average Strip Thickness.

According to the statisticed results for 28 steel coils, the percentage of coils with an average edge drop less than 7 m increases from 65.70% to 89.87%; and that with

Fig. 5. Effects on the strip crown and edge drop.

0.51

Profile

0.50

0.49

0.48 -600 -400 -200 0 200 400 600

Distance to the Center of strip (mm)

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average edge drop less than 10 m increases from 83.6% to 98.13%. The profile of finished product after 20mm side trim is shown in Fig.6. 5. Conclusion A FEM model has been developed to investigate the control capability of the strip profile in a six-high rolling mill. The strip deformation and the roll stack deformation were simultaneously simulated. The effects of work-roll bending, intermediate roll shifting and work roll shifting on the strip crown and edge drop have been discussed. The results show that both higher bending force and more intermediate roll shifting significantly reduce the strip crown and the edge drop. The roll bending force plays a dominant role in the control of the strip profile. The roll shiftings help increase the profile control capability. Comparing two roll shifting approaches, the intermediate roll shifting exhibits a higher capability than the work roll shifting. Acknowledgments The authors gratefully acknowledge the Anshan Iron&Steel Corporation and Wuhan Iron&Steel Corporation for the support to this work. In addition, special thanks are extended to Chongtao WANG (Senior Engineer) for his cooperation and assistance. References
1. 2. 3. 4. S. Q. Chen, Encyclopedia of Chinese Cold Rolling Strip and Plate (Metallurgy industry press, Beijing, 2002). Q. Yang, Cold rolling mills in China, Report, University of Science and Technology Beijing, 2007. G. D. Wang, Shape control and shape theory (Metallurgy Industry Press, Beijing, 1986). Akio Suzuk, Recent Progress in the Rolling Mills Part I, Transactions ISIJ, 24(1984), 228249. V. B. Ginzburg., Steel Rolling Technology, Theory and Practice (Marvel Dekker, New York, 1989). O. Pawelski, W. Rasp, and J. Rieckmann, A mathematical model for predicting the influence of elastic and plastic deformations on strip profile in six-high cold rolling. Proceedings of 4th International Steel Rolling Conference, Deauville, France 1987, pp. E.3.l-6. J. M. Allwood, Model-based evaluation of the effect of horizontal roll offset on crossdirectional control performance in cold-strip rolling, IEE Proc.-Control Theory Appl.. 149(2002), No. 5, 463-370. P. M. Hacquin, J. P. Guillerault, A three-dimensional semi-analytical model of rolling stand deformation with finite element validation, Eur. J. Mech, A/Solids. 17(1998), 79-106.

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