Journal of Materials Processing Technology 209 (2009) 48504856

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Journal of Materials Processing Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmatprotec

Research on strip deformation in the cage roll-forming process of ERW round pipes
Jinmao Jiang a, , Dayong Li a , Yinghong Peng a , Jianxin Li b
a b

School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, PR China Baoshan Iron & Steel Co. Ltd., Shanghai 201900, PR China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Cage roll forming is an advanced roll-forming technique to manufacture electric resistance welded (ERW) round pipes. In the cage roll-forming process, many small rolls are arranged along the outer surface of the deformable strip to bend the strip edge in a more smooth way. Furthermore, these small rolls can be used for forming pipes of different sizes. Therefore, cage roll forming can reduce roll change time and improve forming quality, as compared with the conventional step roll forming. However, very few studies can be found about cage roll forming, due to its complexity, and the industrial practice depends greatly on experience rather than science-based design today. In this work, the whole cage roll-forming process is simulated with the explicit elasticplastic nite element method, and the strip deformation during the cage roll-forming process has been investigated in detail. Through the simulation, the non-bending area phenomenon is found, and the ranges of the non-bending area at different forming stands are obtained. In addition, the longitudinal strain at the inside edge and center are predicted, and by comparison, it can be known that the deformation of the strip edge is usually larger and edge buckling is most likely to occur at the entry sides of No.1No.3 n-pass stands. Finally, the circumferential length, opening distance and the proles of the deformed strip are measured on the cage roll-forming mill. There is a good agreement between the experimental and simulated results. 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 25 June 2008 Received in revised form 6 January 2009 Accepted 10 January 2009 Keywords: Cage roll forming ERW round pipes Non-bending area Finite element method Longitudinal strain

1. Introduction In cold roll-forming processes, metal sheets are progressively deformed into products with required cross-sectional proles by a series of rolls installed at the tandems along the longitudinal direction. As an economical metal sheet forming technology, cold roll forming is playing more and more important roles in various industrial elds, and many products are manufactured by it, such as light gauge section steels, electric welded round pipes and tubes, electric welded square and rectangular pipes, etc. At present, there are two main roll-forming processes for producing electric resistance welded (ERW) pipes, which are the conventional step roll forming and cage roll forming. In the conventional step roll-forming process of ERW pipes, a metal sheet is stepwise bent into round shape using contoured rolls (vertical and horizontal rolls) mounted on different stands, as shown in Fig. 1. Because the formed strip is shaped as dened by the contour of rolls, all the forming rolls have to be changed every time when pipes with different outer diameters are manufactured, which leads to long downtime and high roll costs. Moreover, edge buckling and spring

Corresponding author. Fax: +86 21 34206313. E-mail addresses: void@sjtu.edu.cn, erwok@hotmail.com (J. Jiang). 0924-0136/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2009.01.011

back are prone to occur during the conventional forming process, especially as the ratio of the outside diameter to wall thickness (D/t ratio) increases. In consideration of these problems, the conventional roll-forming mill is changed into the cage roll-forming mill (Michitoshi et al., 2004). In the cage roll-forming process of ERW pipes, a metal sheet is continuously deformed into a round pipe by using a set of small cage rolls arranged along the outer surface of the steel strip. Those small cage rolls can realize a bending process by applying the downhill forming before the n-pass stands. As shown in Fig. 2, the cage roll-forming mill consists of ve parts, which are pinch roll unit, edge-bending stand, pre-forming section, linear forming section (No.1No.3 linear forming section) and n-pass stands (No.1No.3 n-pass stand). The pinch roll unit serves for feeding the strip into the forming mill and for providing main drive forces during production. The edge-bending stands are arranged after the pinch roll stand to bend strip edge on both sides by an upper and a lower bending roll. The pre-forming section consists of two outer forming roll groups equipped with 13 non-driven cage rolls, inner forming tools (upper roll 1upper roll 4), and a breakdown stand. The linear forming section serves for further forming of the strip before the n-pass stands, and comprises three (No.1No.3) linear forming sub-sections (each sub-section consists of two outer forming roll groups equipped with 1012 non-driven cage rolls), inner forming

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Fig. 1. A conventional roll-forming mill.

tools (upper roll 5upper roll 8) and the support rolls. The n-pass stands are the last roll-forming sections before the shaped metal sheet welded, and each n-pass stand comprises an upper roll, a lower roll, and two side rolls. This cage roll-forming mill is characterized by the feature that it is equipped with several dozen pairs of cage rolls, which can be used for manufacturing pipes of any sizes without changing and ensure smooth forming of strip edge. As a result, the cage roll forming can not only reduce the roll changing time signicantly, but also prevent edge buckling and spring back of the deformed strip, compared with the conventional roll forming. Many researchers have done many studies on the conventional roll-forming process of ERW pipes. Kiuchi (1973) rstly applied a semi-analytical method (SAM) to simulate the conventional rollforming process by dening the deformed surface of the sheet between two adjacent stands as a set of sinusoidal shape functions, and an automated design system of roll proles was developed by Kiuchi and Koudabashi (1984). Walker and Pick (1990, 1991) performed a general modeling technique by describing the complex deformed geometry of the skelp with B-splines and a method of using this geometric description to dene the strain state in the

deformed skelp. Nefussi and Gilormini (1993) described the middle surface of the deformed strip by using a Coons Patch, and predicted the optimal shape and the deformed length of a strip before the rst roll stand. Liu et al. (1996) and Han et al. (2004) developed a nite strip method (FSM) to analyze the cold roll-forming process of ERW pipes based on total-Lagrangian method and updated-Lagrangian method respectively. The above two methods SAM and FSM both have an advantage of low computational cost, but these two methods are based on the geometric assumption of the deformation shape of the strip and neglect the contact between forming rolls and the strip, which decrease the accuracy of analysis. In recent years, the nite element method has also been applied in the analysis of the roll-forming process. Kim and Oh (1999) presented a computational method based on the three-dimensional rigid-viscoplastic nite element method to investigate the steel sheet deformation in the conventional roll-forming process. Hong et al. (2000) developed a 3D FEM program (SHAPE-RF) for analysis of the cold roll-forming process of channel and circular tube sections. In SHAPE-RF, initial geometry was calculated with generalized plane-strain assumption, and then the 3D FEM simulation was started with the initial geometry and boundary conditions. Kim et al. (2003) established a nite element model of the multipass conventional roll-forming process of ERW pipes, and predicted the edge shapes of initial strip with second-degree polynomial regression method. Kiuchi and Wang (1999) developed 2D and 3D elasto-plastic FEM codes based on static implicit and dynamic explicit methods, and made a comprehensive study on exible rollforming process of ERW pipe. To obtain fundamental knowledge on cage roll-forming process, Yokoyama et al. (1981) investigated the deformation behavior of steel sheet as expressed in strain history, projection trace and forming owers and methods of determining forming load at n-pass rolls and squeeze rolls by experiments. Although there have been many researches on the analysis of roll-forming process by various simulation techniques, most of previous studies focused on deformation features of metal sheets in the conventional roll-forming process. Few reports have been found on the analysis of the cage roll-forming process, except for some industrial experiment. Due to the quite long forming zone (almost 20 m), great number of forming rolls (approximately 80 rolls), and complicate contact status between the deformed strip and rolls in cage roll forming, the computation cost for simulation of the whole cage roll forming is formidable. Therefore, the dynamic explicit FEM is selected to simulate the whole cage roll-forming process of ERW pipes, due to its high efciency in reducing CPU time, saving memory and dealing with the contact (Lindgren and Edberg, 1990). The modeling of the cage roll-forming process is proposed using explicit code LS-DYNA based on 3D elasticplastic nite element method. The work presented here aims to investigate the deformation characteristics of steel strip in the cage roll-forming process. In particular, through analyzing the relative curvature of the deformed strip, the non-bending area phenomenon is found during the cage roll-forming process of ERW pipes, and the ranges of non-bending area at different forming stands are obtained. In addition, the distribution of longitudinal strains at inside edge and center are predicted and the positions most likely subjected to edge buckling are located. Finally, the circumferential length, opening distance and cross-section congurations of the deformed strip are measured and compared with the simulation results. 2. Finite element modeling of the cage roll-forming process An elasticplastic nite element model of the cage roll-forming mill, which is used to produce pipes of 325 mm in outer diameter, has been established. The FE models about pre-forming, linear forming section, and n-pass stands are shown in Figs. 35 respec-

Fig. 2. A cage roll-forming mill.

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Fig. 6. Stressstrain curves for X-60 steel.

Fig. 3. The FE model of pre-forming section in the cage roll-forming process.

and the computation accuracy. Only half of the model is used due to symmetry. The detailed information of the nite element model of the cage roll-forming process is described as follows. 2.1. Material properties The elastic modulus (E) and Poissons ratio ( ) of X-60 steel are 210 GPa and 0.3, respectively. The stressstrain curve for X-60 is depicted in Fig. 6. The deformation of all the forming rolls in the cage roll-forming process of ERW pipes is very tiny as compared with the shaped steel strip, so all of them are assumed as rigid bodies. 2.2. Finite element modeling In the nite element model, eight-node brick elements are used to generate the mesh for the steel strip, and four-node shell elements are used to model the roll surfaces. In order to simulate the inside and outside bending deformation of strip more accurately, the steel strip is divided into two layers through the thickness. The whole strip consists of 231,132 nodes and 150,500 brick elements, and all the forming rolls consist of 278,280 nodes and 269,384 shell elements. The coulombs friction law is used and the frictional coefcient is set to 0.1. For simplicity, all six degrees of freedom of all of the forming rolls are xed and the steel strip is pulled with a certain speed through a series of xed forming rolls arranged in the forming direction. A set of nodes at the center of the strip is subjected to a symmetrical condition constraint in the yz plane, i.e. no motion is allowed for y translation, x and z rotation. For keeping a satisfactory precision for simulation, the virtual velocity should be rationally controlled to ensure that the virtual kinetic energy of metal sheet should be less than 7% of the total internal energy (Zhang et al., 2006). As a result, in the nal 3D simulation, the virtual velocity of steel strip is set to 12 m/s, which results in its virtual kinetic energy being 5.8% of the total internal energy. 3. Discussion of simulation results Through the nite element simulation, the whole cage rollforming process of ERW round pipe is investigated. 3.1. Deformation features of steel strip As shown in Fig. 7, AA, BB, CC and DD represent the section shapes at the outlet of pre-forming, No.1No.3 linear forming sections; EE represents the section shape at the No.1 n-pass stand.

Fig. 4. The FE model of linear forming section in the cage roll-forming process.

tively. The dimension of the original strip to be formed is 21,000 mm (length) 1018 mm (width) 10.3 mm (thickness). The material is X-60 steel. In this study, different element types, element sizes, sheet speed, sheet length, type of velocity boundary conditions have been tried to get a good balance between the required CPU time

Fig. 5. The FE model of n-pass stands in the cage roll-forming process.

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Fig. 7. Schematic illustration of non-bending area of steel sheet in the different forming positions.

The non-bending areas of steel sheet in different forming positions can be clearly observed from Fig. 7. The so-called non-bending areas are those regions on the strip that remain almost straight after passing through forming rolls. According to Fig. 7, along the forming direction, the non-bending area is always in existence prior to the No.1 n-pass stand and eliminated after passing through npass stands. The reason for having the non-bending area is that the steel strip is shaped by air-bending before the No.1 n-pass stand (as shown in Fig. 8(a)). In air-bending the steel sheet and forming rolls are under an incomplete contact state, which usually leads to inadequate bending due to the lack of constraints. As the deformed strip is passing through the n-pass stands, it is shaped by squeeze-bending (shown as Fig. 8(b)), which can greatly strengthen the constraints. Moreover, in squeeze-bending the shape of the deformed strip is generally dependent on the geometry of the forming rolls. Therefore, the non-bending area of the steel strip is eliminated at the n-pass rolls. Through above analysis, it just can be found that the nonbending area usually occurs at the pre-forming and linear forming sections, so it is still very necessary to investigate the ranges of the non-bending area at different forming positions. In the next study, the non-bending area is indicated by the relative curvature, which is dened as the ratio of bending radius of the deformed sheet to the radius of the nal product. Usually the region where relative curvature is less than 0.1 can be taken as non-bending area. In order to get the detailed information of the non-bending area during the whole cage roll-forming process, the relative curvature along transverse proles of the deformed sheet is calculated at the typical forming positions. These typical forming positions include the edge-bending stand (ED), upper roll 2 (R2), upper roll 4 (R4), outlet of pre-forming section (Prf), outlet of No.1 linear forming section (Lf1), outlet of No.2 linear forming section (Lf2), outlet of No.3 linear forming section (Lf3), No.1 n-pass stand (Fp1), No.2 n-pass stand (Fp2) and No.3 n-pass stand (Fp3). Fig. 9 shows the relative curvature of the cross-section of the deformed strip at different positions during the pre-forming section. As shown in Fig. 9, the range of non-bending area of the

Fig. 9. Relative curvature of the cross-section of deformed strip at different positions during the pre-forming section.

deformed strip is 5072% relative distance from the center of strip during the pre-forming section. Fig. 10 shows the relative curvature of the cross-section of the deformed strip at different positions during the linear forming sec-

Fig. 8. Schematic illustration of air-bending and squeeze-bending.

Fig. 10. Relative curvature of the cross-section of deformed strip at different positions during the linear forming section.

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Fig. 11. Relative curvature of the cross-section of deformed strip at different positions during the n-pass stands.

Fig. 13. Longitudinal strain of the deformed strip at inside edge during the entire cage roll-forming process.

tion. As shown in Fig. 10, during the No.1 and No.2 linear forming sections the range of non-bending area of the deformed strip is 5272% relative distance from the center of strip and after the No.3 linear forming section its range is 6368% relative distance from the center of strip. Fig. 11 shows relative curvature of the cross-section of deformed strip at different positions at the n-pass stands. As shown in Fig. 11, the non-bending area of the deformed strip disappears completely after the No.1 n-pass stand, which has also been demonstrated in Fig. 7. In order to evaluate the contribution of different forming stands and corresponding bending degree to the deformed strip, the integral of relative curvature with respect to distance from the center of strip at different positions is calculated. Fig. 12 depicts the integral of relative curvature of the deformed strip cross-section at different forming positions. During the pre-forming and linear forming sections, the integral of relative curvature of the deformed strip cross-section increases linearly and smoothly along the forming direction; an obvious increment can be observed at the edge-bending (ED) and No.1 n-pass (Fp1) stands. The reason is that the bending deformation at ED and Fp1 stands is very large, while the deformation at the pre-forming and linear forming sec-

tions is smooth and uniform. In addition, at the last forming stand (No.3 Fin-pass) the integral of relative curvature of the deformed strip cross-section reaches about 0.65, which means the bending deformation of the at strip has been done 65% after the entire cage roll-forming process. The remaining 35% deformation will be completed by squeeze-welding and sizing sections, before the deformed strip becomes the nal product. 3.2. Longitudinal strain In practice, the most common defect in the cage roll-forming process of ERW round pipes is edge buckling, which is so-called edge wave. Once the edge elongation is excessive, the edge buckling will occur. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the longitudinal strain of the skelp during the cage roll-forming process. Fig. 13 shows the longitudinal strain of the deformed strip at inside edge during the entire cage roll-forming process. In the longitudinal direction, tensile strain at the edge shows a great increase and the maximum strain is about 1.65% at edge-bending stand. It means the edge-bending rolls exert a strong bending on the strip edge, which is helpful to increasing the rigidity and preventing edge buckling. After edge-bending rolls, small plastic deformation occurs on the strip edge at the inlet of pre-forming section, break down stand, the outlet of No.1No.3 linear forming sections. In the cage zone, little variation in the longitudinal strain is observed. It should be noticed that the edge is subjected to a slight tensile deformation and then a large compressive deformation in the region from the last cage roll to the entrance of the No.1 n-pass stand. The longitudinal strain at the edge shows a great increase at the No.1No.3 n-pass stands and the maximum strains are about 2.0%, 2.3% and 3.2% respectively, which means that the relative large deformation of the strip edge occurs at the n-pass stands. Obviously, edge buckling is mostly likely to appear at the entry side of No.1No.3 n-pass stands. Fig. 14 shows the longitudinal strain of the deformed strip at inside center part during the entire cage roll-forming process. As for strain at the center part, small plastic deformation occurs after the No.1 n-pass stand and the longitudinal strain in the pre-forming and linear forming sections are less than 0.2%, which indicates that the longitudinal deformation in the cage zone is small enough to remain within the elastic scope.

Fig. 12. Integral of relative curvature of the deformed strip cross-section at different forming positions.

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Fig. 15. Prole comparison at the exit of edge-bending stand.

Fig. 14. Longitudinal strain of the deformed strip at inside center during the entire cage roll-forming process. Table 1 Comparisons of measured and simulated results of the circumferential length of strip. Measured positions Circumferential length l (mm) Simulated ED Prf Lf1 Lf2 Lf3 1026.5 1031.8 1035.5 1037.5 1041.5 Measured 1030.5 1036.2 1039.4 1043.1 1047 4 4.4 3.9 5.6 5.5 0.388 0.425 0.375 0.537 0.525
l

(mm)

l (%)

4. Comparisons with experimental measurements In order to calibrate the nite element simulation, the circumferential length, opening distance and the section congurations of the deformed strip have been measured on an industrial cage rollforming mill. As shown as in Fig. 7, for convenience, ve measured positions have been chosen, which are the exit of edge bending (ED), pre-forming section (Prf), linear forming section 1 (Lf1), linear forming section 2 (Lf2) and linear forming section 3 (Lf3), respectively. Table 1 shows the measured and simulated results of the circumferential length (l) of the deformed strip along the outside surface at the different positions. Table 2 shows the measured and simulated results of the opening distance (d) of the deformed strip at the outside surface at the different positions. As shown in Table 1, the maximum absolute error ( l ) and relative error (l ) of the circumferential length is 5.6 mm and 0.537% respectively. The corresponding positions are located at the exit of No.2 linear forming section. As shown in Table 2, the maximum absolute error ( d ) and relative error (d ) of the opening distance is 20.2 mm and 4.514%
Fig. 16. Prole comparison at the exit of the pre-forming section.

respectively. The corresponding position is located at the exit of No.2 linear forming section. Figs. 1519 show the comparison of the section congurations of the deformed strip at the exit of edge bending, pre-forming, No.1 linear forming, No.2 linear forming and No.3 linear forming section respectively. Good agreement is shown between the experimental results and simulation results.

Table 2 Comparisons of measured and simulated results of the opening distance of strip. Measured positions Opening distance d (mm) Simulated ED Prf Lf1 Lf2 Lf3 979.1 778.6 572.6 427.3 184.6 Measured 986.2 785.5 585.8 447.5 190.3 7.1 6.9 13.2 20.2 5.7 0.720 0.878 2.253 4.514 2.995
d

(mm)

d (%)

Fig. 17. Prole comparison at the exit of No.1 linear forming.

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(2) By computing the integral of relative curvature with respect to distance from the center of strip at different positions with the trapezoidal method, not only the forming contribution of different forming stands but also the bending degree of the deformed strip in different forming sections are predicted. It is helpful to evaluate the forming capability of different forming sections and adjust forming parameters more reasonably during the cage roll-forming process. (3) Through analyzing the strain distribution of the deformed strip in the forming direction, the characteristics of longitudinal deformation at edge and center parts are obtained. At the same time, the positions most likely subjected to edge buckling have been located. (4) The circumferential length, opening distance and the proles of the deformed strip have been measured on the 325 mm cage roll-forming mill, and the experimental and simulated results have a good agreement.
Fig. 18. Prole comparison at the exit of No.2 linear forming.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge the nancial support of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 50634010, 50375095), Shanghai Science & Technology Projects (Nos. 07XD14016, 06QA14026, 05JC14022), and Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-07-0545). References
Han, Z.W., Liu, C., Lu, W.P., Ren, L.Q., Jin, T., 2004. Experimental investigation and theoretical analysis of roll forming of electrical resistance welded pipes. Journal of Materials Processing Technology 145, 311316. Hong, S.M., Kim, D.S., Yoon, H.J., Kim, N., 2000. Development of roll forming simulation program. In: Transactions of the Korean Society of CAD/CAM Engineers Annual Meeting, pp. 417423. Kiuchi, M., 1973. Analytical study on cold roll forming process. Report of the Institute of Industrial Science 23 (1), 143. Kiuchi, M., Koudabashi, T., 1984. Automated design system of optimal roll proles for cold roll forming. In: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Rotary Metalworking Processes, pp. 423436. Kiuchi, M., Wang, F.Z., 1999. FEM simulation of roll-forming of ERW pipes and mill/process design. In: Proceedings of the 6th ICTP, pp. 1924. Kim, N., Oh, S.-I., 1999. Analysis tool for roll forming of sheet metal strips by the nite element method. CIRP Annals-Manufacturing Technology 48 (1), 235238. Kim, N., Kang, B., Lee, S., 2003. Prediction and design of edge shape of initial strip for thick tube roll forming using nite element method. Journal of Materials Processing Technology 142, 479486. Liu, C., Zhou, Y., Lu, W.P., 1996. Numerical simulation of roll-forming by B-spline nite strip method. Journal of Materials Processing Technology 60, 215218. Lindgren, L.-K., Edberg, J., 1990. Explicit versus implicit nite element formulation in simulation of rolling. Journal of Materials Processing Technology 24, 8594. Michitoshi, T., Isamu, K., Osamu, S., 2004. Outline of new forming equipment for Hikari 24 ERW Mill, Nippon Steel Technical Report, No. 90, pp.122126. Nefussi, G., Gilormini, P., 1993. A simplied method for the simulation of cold roll forming. International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 35 (10), 867878. Walker, T.R., Pick, R.J., 1990. Approximation of the axial strains developed during the roll forming of ERW pipe. Journal of Materials Processing Technology 22, 2944. Walker, T.R., Pick, R.J., 1991. Developments in the geometric modeling of an ERW pipe skelp. Journal of Materials Processing Technology 25, 3554. Yokoyama, E., Toyooka, T., Ejima, A., Yoshimoto, Y., Kawate, T., Kumata, K., 1981. Steel sheet deformation behavior and forming load determination in the 26-inch cage forming ERW pipe mill, Kawasaki steel technical report, No.4, pp. 7283. Zhang, D.J., Cui, Z.S., Li, Y.Q., Ruan, X.Y., 2006. Effect of virtual kinetic energy on springback simulation accuracy. Journal of Harbin Institute of Technology 38 (10), 16361639.

Fig. 19. Prole comparison at the exit of No.3 linear forming.

5. Summary and conclusion In this paper, the elasticplastic FEM model about the whole cage roll-forming ERW pipe mill has been established. The deformation behavior of steel sheet has been analyzed through simulation of the forming process. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) The steel strip is subjected to an air-bending deformation before No.1 n-pass stand in the cage roll-forming process. As a result, the non-bending area phenomenon can be found before No.1 n-pass stand. After calculating the relative curvature of proles of the deformed strip, the ranges of the non-bending area at different forming positions are obtained, which is instructive to the design of pass-schedules and roll proles in the cage rollforming process.