Abstract

Hot rolling is one of the most widely used process by the industry for manufacturing metallic materials, so that almost 80% of metallic products undergo a process of hot rolling at least once during their production cycle. Due to the great importance of rolling processes, a big deal of research has been done during recent decades looking forward the improvement of understanding and optimisation of this type of process. In recent decades, the study of rolling processes has been approached using different analytic and numerical methods. Of all the analysis methods available, Finite Element Method (FEM) is the one which provides results in the faster and most precise way. The use of software based on analysis by finite elements allow modelling and predicting the behaviour of the material during the rolling process. By making use of this type of software, it would be possible to develop new rolling processes or propose improvements to existing processes without the for trial and error. Within this context, it is necessary to highlight that there is a great interest from the big worldwide stainless-steel manufactures in the use of this type of tools in order to obtain information that can help to the improvement of manufacturing process of various type of products. Because of this reason, numerous initiatives have arisen aimed at the application of simulation software using FEM for the study of this type of processes. In the present work, Simufact Forming software has been used to simulate the hot rolling step of 2000 x 1000 x 200 mm AISI 430 ferritic stainless-steel slabs on an industrial scale. The validation of simulations has been done by comparing the models generated by the software and the data recorded in the real process. The work is oriented towards the simulation of stresses, deformations and surface temperature that occur during the rolling process and that could be related to the appearance of defects whose existence translates into a loss of production yield and efficiency in the use of natural resources used in the manufacture of these stainless-steels.