FEM analysis of the head bending in narrow strip hot rolling

Head bending is a problem in narrow strip hot rolling, which causes a difficulty for strip to enter the next rolling pass of the tandem mills and affects the quality of products. A 2D FEM coupled thermal-stress analysis was employed to simulate the rolling process. The effects of the temperature difference, friction coefficient, reduction and the rolling speed on the head bending are discussed in the paper. Simulation results are in agreement with the measured values.