Streamline strip element method for analysis of the three-dimensional stresses and deformations of strip rolling

This paper puts forward a new method-the streamline strip element method (SSEM) for simulating the three-dimensional stresses and deformations of strip rolling process. The rolling deformation zone is divided into a number of streamline strip elements along metal flow traces, and the streamline strip elements are mapped onto the corresponding rectangle strip elements for computation. The longitudinal distribution model of the metal lateral displacement is constructed to be a quartic plus cubic curve. The three-dimensional deformations and stresses of the deformation zone are formulated. For the cold strip rolling on a 300 mm wide four-high mill, the computed results of the transverse distributions of the rolling pressure and the front and back tension stresses are close to the experimental ones. For the cold strip rolling on a 1850 mm wide six-high CVC mill, the computed results of the transverse distributions of the front tension stress are also close to the experimental ones. This proves that the streamline strip element is a reliable engineering-computation method, and of great importance to developing the mathematical model of the shape control of strip rolling. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.