Empirical-Numerical Simulation Technique for Improving the Quality of Rolled Rods by Roll Pass Design

Improper roll pass designs can lead to either underfill which results in the formation of hairline cracks on the surface of the finished bars or overfill which results in roll overloading and the formation of fins. Therefore to reduce downtime, and improve yield and quality, it becomes important to design an acceptable roll pass in reasonable time. This paper presents a methodology for roll pass design which uses a three dimensional finite element technique along with an empirical procedure to arrive at an iterative scheme for reducing the number of passes and improving metal flow in the passes. This methodology is applied to improving an existing seven pass square - to - round rolling sequence, resulting in the reduction of the number of passes and improved distributions of effective strains in the rolled product.