Analytical Modeling of Plate Curvature in Snake Rolling of Heavy Aluminum Alloy with Different Deformation Zones

The snake rolling manufacture technique provides a new method for producing high-performance heavy aluminum plates. The traditional curvature model of the asymmetrical rolling cannot be simply applied to calculate the curvature of the snake rolling. The plate curvature model of the snake rolling was set up in this research according to the roll offset and different roll radii. The deformation region consists of four different zones at most which depends on the positions of the two neutral points, and this number may drop to three or two under other conditions. The deformation zone with different composition cases was analyzed, and the models of the specific pressure and the accumulated shear strain deviation between the upper and lower parts of the plate were established. The plate curvature caused by shear strain and axial strain was calculated separately. The homogeneity coefficient E was introduced during the plate curvature modeling process to ensure the model accuracy. Then the total plate curvature model was established. Ansys software simulation can well restore the snake rolling process, and the indirect experiments were also conducted to verify the precision of plate curvature theoretical model. The results show that the maximum and minimum relative error is 10.71% and 0.34%, respectively, compared to results of simulation method and the indirect experiments, indicating that the model can be applied for the online plate curvature control application with the effect of some self-learning methods. The plate curvature affecting law with different process parameters (roll offset, roll radius ratio, rolling reduction, and initial work piece thickness) was obtained. This research about the plate curvature modeling provides important references for the production of heavy aluminum plate snake rolling.