Simulation of contact stresses and forces during hot rolling of thin wide strips with allowance for a stick zone and elastic regions in the deformation zone

Abstract

A new procedure for the calculation of contact stresses and hot-rolling forces for wide strips 0.8–1.5 mm thick has been developed and tested. This procedure takes into account the presence of a stick zone in the deformation zone and stress distributions in both elastic and plastic regions in the deformation zone. The average error in the force calculation according to the new procedure is 5%, which is more than two times smaller than the calculation error of well-known force calculation procedures. The developed procedure is used to simulate the contact stresses in the deformation zones of working stands in a six-stand 1700 mill during rolling of strips thinner than 1.0 mm. A number of new relations for the state of stress in a strip have been revealed upon simulation. Some of these relations are as follows: in the last stands, the length of elastic regions accounts for 10–17% of the total deformation-zone length; the maximum normal contact stresses are 1300–1400 MPa, which corresponds to the stresses in the deformation zones of cold-rolling mills; the stick-zone length accounts for 85–99% of the deformation-zone length; and the contact stresses in the stick zone are virtually independent of the friction coefficient. The developed calculation procedure can be used to optimize the technological regimes of wide-strip mills.