Design optimisation of an industrial roll forming process through an heuristic algorithm

Contour roll forming is a continuous sheet forming operation where an initially simple plane strip is progressively formed into a desired profile of uniform cross section through the action of a series of roll stations equipped with contoured rolls. At each step of the deformation path a small amount of change of shape is assigned, thus requiring an effective process design; in particular the number of steps and the geometry of the rolls at each station must be effectively selected. In this paper the authors propose the application of an Artificial Intelligence technique, namely the Simulated Annealing technique, in order to obtain an optimal design of an industrial roll forming operation. The effectiveness of the results supplied by the AI technique has been verified both by means of numerical simulations and experimental tests on an industrial equipment.