Numerical Modeling of Roller Leveler for Thick Plate Leveling

To ensure quality of the steel structures used in the shipbuilding and construction industry, the thick plate market increasingly demands for more flatness and higher residual stress. Diminishing slit camber caused by residual stress and incorrect flatness due to aging effect has recently emerged as important quality issues. In the current study, we proposed a new numerical model for a twodimensional roller leveler which calculates the curvature and moment of the material depending on the intermesh. This curvature was used to calculate the stress and strain values of the material along the thickness direction. Correction factors were also introduced to correct the location of the contact point that changes when the relationship between the intermesh and curvature was assumed as three-point bending of a concentrated load at the plate center. The result from this numerical model and that of the finite element analysis were compared to verify the effectiveness of this model.