Three-stage process for improving roll bending quality

Continuous pyramidal three-roll bending process has the simple configuration. However, two planar zones exist near the leading and trailing edges after a conical roll bending. This paper proposes a three-stage process to improve the geometrical quality of a bent cone for providing an alternative process for the manufacture of the crowns of Francis turbines for hydro plants or the towers of wind power plants. The process was simulated under the commercial software LS-DYNA with an explicit scheme and ANSYS with an implicit scheme. The geometrical quality of the bent cone was improved after the final stage of the process. Crown Copyright (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.