Plane strain hot rolling of slab and strip

A numerical solution of the steady-state plane strain hot rolling problem with maximum friction is found in the range from the thick slab to the thin strip rolling geometries. The problem is kinematically determinate, and it is solved on the physical and hodograph planes using the finite-difference approximation of hyperbolic differential equations of the plane strain rigid-plastic flow theory, A sequence of the boundary value problems defined by the slipline field mode is treated as a non-linear vector equation which is solved by Broyden's secant method. Six versions of the FORTRAN PC programs are written for a wide range of the slab/strip rolling geometries. The solution for the thin strip rolling with large roll radius and small strip thickness reduction is approached to Prandtl's thin plastic layer with homogeneous velocity field. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.