Three dimensional thermal mechanical coupled simulation during hot rolling of aluminium alloy 3003

Rolling passes of a pass schedule supplied by an aluminium company and containing reliable measured data of roll load and torque is considered. Percentage reductions range from 6% to 20% and are analysed by a commercial thermo-mechanical coupled FEM program FORGE3 V5.3. An inverse analysis method is adopted to match the calculated rolling force and torque with the measured rolling force and torque by treating the friction law and the friction coefficient as free parameters. Three widely accepted friction laws are investigated; Tresca friction, Coulomb friction and viscoplastic friction. The use of viscoplastic friction is shown to yield both more reliable and more accurate results than other models. Significantly the friction coefficient can be traced to remain constant throughout the pass schedule of the breakdown rolling. The contact pressure distribution is then studied with different thickness reductions and compared with published experimental results. The predicted and experimental agreement is such that the load calculation can be regarded as satisfactory. Acceptable agreement is also obtained with the measured torque values. The distribution of equivalent strain, temperature and the stress in the roll gap and the lateral profile are discussed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.