Toward a 2D/3D Finite-Element-Based Digital Shadow for the Approximation of Metrologically Inaccessible Dynamic Fields of State Variables during Heavy Plate Rolling

While innovations in metal forming technology are closely linked to material science, automation, and mechatronization in recent decades, nowadays, and in the upcoming years, they are supposed to be driven by digital transformation and virtualization. Motivated by this expectation and the fact that the dynamic, process-relevant thermophysical state variables in plates during rolling are difficult or even impossible to measure, a modularly structured 2D/3D model, integrated into a digital shadow, is built and validated against a metrologically accessible process data. The decisive innovation of the presented modeling strategy is the investigation of the state during longitudinal rolling in the fillet, depending on the width direction. The fillet marks the heavy plate without head and tail crops, developed during longitudinal rolling. Application of the simulation tool reveals significant temperature gradients near the plate surfaces, both horizontally and vertically, but also a region of nearly constant temperature near the core. The development of the fillet cross-section shape, including the emergence of bulges or contractions at the side surfaces, is predicted within the simulation. The digital shadow is scalable and has a parameterized structure so that rolling schedules of different compositions can be simulated.