Modelling of slab rolling by 3-D rigid visco-plastic finite element method

Slab rolling reduces thickness or control width in the roughing stands of hot strip mills. In this paper, the modelling of the slab rolling process was performed by a 3-D rigid visco-plastic Finite Element Method (FEM). The effects of friction variation, mesh division and tensions on results of simulations are examined. The shifted incomplete Cholesky decomposition of the stiffness matrix coupled with the conjugate gradient method, named the shifted ICCG method, is also employed in a 3-D rigid visco-plastic FEM to solve slab rolling problem. The influence of the shift parameter lyon rolling force is insignificant and the calculated shape of slab is in good agreement with the experimental values. The application of the numerical modelling taking into account the friction variation is quite effective in solving slab rolling problem.