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j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146

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Calculation of thermal stress affecting strip atness change
during run-out table cooling in hot steel strip rolling
Xiaodong Wang
a,b,
, Quan Yang
b
, Anrui He
b
a
Research Institute of Technology, Shougang Corporation, 68 Shijingshan Road, Shijingshan District, Beijing 100041, PR China
b
National Engineering Research Center for Advanced Rolling Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing, 30 Xueyuan Road,
Haidian District, Beijing 100083, PR China
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 26 October 2006
Received in revised form
21 November 2007
Accepted 17 December 2007
Keywords:
Hot rolled strip
Thermal stress
Run-out table
Flatness
ABAQUS
a b s t r a c t
To fulll further reducing production costs at the meantime enhancing product quality is
always one of the objectives pursued by steel enterprises and researches. With increasing
demand on higher quality of hot rolled strip shape, strip atness change developed during
cooling on the run-out table has received signicant attention and should be considered in
online strip shape control model. Non-uniformity of transverse temperature distribution in
strip is the ultimate reason for the occurring of strip atness defect after hot rolled at strip
is cooled to room temperature. Based on the large amount of thermal image eld measure-
ments on strip surface, transverse temperature distribution rules of strip were concluded.
A FE model was established to analyze the thermal stresses developed during the cooling of
hot rolled strip on the run-out table using nite element program ABAQUS. Analysis results
demonstrate that temperature drop withinstrip edge regionwill make strip atness develop
to the trend of edge wave and are veried by the actual strip atness observation on skin
pass rolling line. This viewpoint agrees well with the actual production condition. One com-
pensation control strategy, named slight center wave rolling, is proposed based on the FE
analysis work. The main idea is that steel strip is rolled with slight center wave at the exit of
the last stand of nishing mill to compensate the atness change trend of edge wave during
the cooling.
2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Geometrical or dimensional attributes of hot rolled strip are
very important, since a highly waved or cambered strip might
cause damage to the equipment or retard the production.
With increasing demand on higher strip dimensional toler-
ances, maintaining a uniform strip crown and a at shape
during hot rolling and consequently cooling has become one
of the most challenging technical tasks in the steel industry.
After steel strip is hot rolled, it is then subjected to cooling

Corresponding author at: Research Institute of Technology, Shougang Corporation, 68 Shijingshan Road, Shijingshan District, Beijing
100041, PR China. Tel.: +86 10 68845910.
E-mail address: x d wcumt@163.com (X. Wang).
on the run-out table. Edge drop in strip is not evitable dur-
ing hot rolling, and cooling conditions are different between
strip edge and strip center, so nonuniform temperature dis-
tribution in the steel strip is common. The quality of the nal
product, such as the metallurgical and mechanical properties
and the atness of the strip, may vary signicantly depend-
ing upon the condition of temperature distribution prole
in strip. As a result of an uneven temperature distribution
across the width of the strip during the cooling process, sig-
nicant thermal stress is generated. The large thermal stress
0924-0136/$ see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2007.12.076
j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146 131
will cause local plastic deformation across the strip and con-
sequently introduces residual stress and strip atness defect.
Many researches (Prieto et al., 2001; Liu, 2001; Sun et al., 2002;
Serajzadeh, 2003) of heat transfer and metallurgical phenom-
ena during cooling of hot rolled strip have been done. In the
contrast, the researches on how strip atness changes during
cooling are lack, and yet no consistent conclusion is reached.
To analyze the deformations of hot rolled product after
cooling, precise investigation of thermal stress developed dur-
ing the cooling is very important, and has received signicant
attention (Yoshida, 1984a,b; Boyadjiev et al., 2004a; Boyadjiev
et al., 2004b; Han et al., 2002; Suzuki and Isaka, 1998) for
enhancing the nal product quality. For hot rolled steel strip,
the atness observed at the exit of last stand of nishing mill
does not stand for the nal product atness. Disturbances in
the strip atness are caused by the creation of internal stress
generated from the results of nonuniform temperature distri-
butionandunevencooling. Four kinds of thermal gradients: (a)
across the width; (b) throughthe thickness onbody; (c) through
the thickness on head and tail end; (d) along the length, inu-
encing the strip atness as different patterns of edge waves
or bows, were summarized by Ginzburg (1993) based on the
works of Guglielmetti et al. (1987). To the hot rolled thin strip,
because heat conductions along stripthickness andlengthcan
be neglected, only the atness defects resulted from nonuni-
formtemperature distribution along strip width is considered.
There are two contradictory viewpoints about how the strip
atness changes during the cooling process after hot rolling.
The rst one is that the edge wave will happen after cooling
of steel strip even if the atness from after the rolling stage to
before the coiling stage is good or center wave. The represen-
tative works include the researches having been carried out
by Yoshida (Yoshida, 1984c; Yoshida et al., 1997), Guglielmetti
et al. (1987), Tani et al. (1998), Col as et al. (2004) and Cai (1998).
The other one is that the center wave will happenafter cooling
of steel strip. The conclusion can be gotten froma preliminary
computational analysis of the residual stress generated dur-
ing cooling of hot rolled thin steel strip on the run-out table
performed by Zhou et al. (2003). The result is that temperature
drop within strip edge region leads to the longitudinal stress
distribution of tensile stress at strip edge and compressive
stress at strip center, and this will lead to center wave atness
defect. While in the research on deections of the thermome-
chanical controlled process (TMCP) plates conducted by Wang
et al. (1996), temperature drop at strip edge will lead to cen-
ter wave atness defect occurring at the rst deection stage
during or after cooling and before hot leveling while will lead
to edge wave atness defect occurring at the second deec-
tion stage during the attened plate is air cooled to ambient
temperature. One consistent shape prediction simulator was
developed by Ogai et al. (2004), in which the cooling courses
on the run-out table, at downcoiler and coil yard were covered.
The calculation result acquired is that center wave occurs in
strip during its cooling on the run-out table, and then cen-
ter wave weakens during coiling in the downcoiler, in the end
center wave disappears and edge wave appears during cool-
ing at the coil yard. That is to say, center wave may appear
during the cooling course of steel strip on the run-out table
from the results obtained by Wang et al. (1996), Zhou et al.
(2003) and Ogai et al. (2004). This conclusion contradicts to the
results obtained by Yoshida (1984c), Guglielmetti et al. (1987)
and Cai (1998) mentioned above. However, the new research
result acquired by Zhou et al. (2007) shows that temperature
difference between the edge and centre will make the steel
strips buckling change from the centre to the edge during its
cooling on the run-out table.
For the purpose of exploring howthe strip atness changes
during and after cooling, thermal stress developed in strip
during cooling on the run-out table after nish rolling was
investigatedbasedona nite element model establishedusing
ABAQUS in this work. The FE model, referred the work of
Zhongqing Zhou et al. (2003), has been established, and the
results of thermal stress were compared with those obtained
previously.
2. The meaning of this study
In terms of quality, nowadays atness is not only one of the
most important factors to consider in the hot coils production,
but also one of the most difcult ones to broach. In thin and
wide hot rolledsteel strip, edge waves are oftenobservedat the
entry side of the skinpass mill after cooling evenif the atness
from after the rolling stage to before the coiling stage is well.
When the edge wave becomes large, problems such as low-
ering efciency during skin pass rolling and imperfection in
atness after skinpass rolling will arise. If the edge wave is not
prevented, the atness control in the nishing mill becomes
worthless (Yoshida, 1984c). Conventional means to solve this
problem are improving temperature distribution uniformity
along transverse direction (Naoki and Hiroshi, 1995; Peregrina
et al., 2006) through controlling water ow rate distribution
and edge masking amount. However, both the measures men-
tioned above need modify and install new devices and their
control system. That will increase cost and affect normal pro-
duction, and also has a certain difculty to precisely control
water owrate and edge masking amount because there lacks
temperature measurements of strip transverse direction on
line.
If the rules of transverse temperature distribution of strip
at the exit of nishing mill and the entry of downcoiler are
mastered through off-line measurements or temperature dis-
tribution can be measured real time, the strip can be rolled
to be a certain specic atness at the exit of nishing mill to
compensate the atness change whichoccurs during the cool-
ing. This method may be one feasible solution to realize the
aimof good nal product atness, and has the more attractive
advantage of fewer investments in devices and modications
than conventional measures mentioned above. Strip atness
changes fromnishing mill to cooled strip coil are generalized
as shown in Fig. 1. Final product atness F is determined as
follows:
F = F1 +dF1 +dF2 (1)
where F1, dF1 and dF2 are atness at exit of nishing mill, at-
ness change during cooling on the run-out table and atness
change during coiling process, respectively, IU. If dF1 and dF2
are known, then F1 is the aim atness value to be determined,
132 j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146
Fig. 1 Inuencing factors on steel strip atness during hot rolling, cooling and coiling processes.
and can be expressed as
F1 = F dF1 dF2 (2)
To realize this method, measurements of transverse tem-
perature distribution of steel strip and residual stress analysis
are two key steps for determining dF1 and dF2.
From our knowledge, Ogai et al. (2004) is the rst one who
conducted the research of online strip shape prediction simu-
lator covering the cooling courses at run-out table, downcoiler
and coil yard. However, there are no measures presented to
prevent strip atness defects in his research. One research
group of National Engineering Research Center for Advanced
Rolling Technology at University of Science and Technology
Beijing has invested great effort on study of automatic strip
shape control model (Anrui et al., 2006; Wang et al., 2007) and
its application in hot strip mill and also has acquired many
excited achievements. However, main function of this strip
shape control systemis to solve the stripshape problemoccur-
ring at the stage of nish rolling. To enhance the nal product
quality, the cooling process of steel strip on the run-out table
should be considered in the whole strip shape control system,
as shown in Fig. 2. Determination of the aim atness value is
very important for control effect and depends on the preci-
sion of thermal stress analysis. So this task of thermal stress
analysis has a great meaning to determine the aim atness of
nish rolling for better controlling nal product atness and
that is our main research work having been carried out.
3. The thermal image measurements
To clearly analyze the inuences of cooling after hot rolling
on the strip atness and to provide enough data for strip at-
ness compensation control during hot rolling in ASP1700 hot
strip mill of Anshan Iron and Steel Corporation, it is neces-
sary to master the rules of temperature distributionalong strip
width at the exit of last stand of nishing mill and inuences
of the laminar cooling on the temperature distribution on the
run-out table. Twoinfraredthermal imagers were usedtomea-
sure the temperature at the exit of last stand of nishing mill
and the entry of the downcoiler, respectively, and the strip
information such coil number, steel grade, gauge, end rolling
temperature and coiling temperature were recorded at the
same time. Large amount of measurements were conducted
and recorded, and then processed, one example is shown in
Fig. 3.
From the processing and analyzing of strip thermal image
data, the conclusions can be acquired as follows:
(1) The features of transverse temperature distribution of
strip at the exit of the last stand nishing mill can be
summarized as follows: (a) there is 4080

C temperature
decrease withinapproximately 150mmfromstripedge; (b)
temperature decreases more slowly from center to edge in
thin strip (strip thickness is less than 2.58mm) than that
in thick strip (strip thickness is large than 4.50mm); (c)
Fig. 2 Flow chart of strip shape control system for hot strip mill.
j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146 133
Fig. 3 One example of thermal image result and related processed data.
within the strip center excluded 150mm from the strip
edge, temperature variation is as small as approximately
1020

C in thick strip, while may reach 30

C or above in
thin strip.
(2) The features of transverse temperature distribution of
strip at the entry of downcoiler can be summarized as
follows: (a) there is 2040

C slow temperature decrease


within approximately 150mm from strip edge and a very
small temperature variation generally less than 10

C
withinstrip center excluded 150mmfromthe strip edge in
thin steel strip (thickness is less than 2.58mm); (b) there is
2030

C slow temperature decrease within approximately


150mm from strip edge and a relatively even temperature
distribution, which is 10

C less than that of strip edge,


134 j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146
within strip center excluded 150mm from the strip edge
in thin steel strip (thickness is large than 4.5mm).
(3) Empirically calculating, 1

C temperature difference will


lead to 1.0510
5
ber elongation difference which is
almost equal to 1IU atness value. This difference will
result 2.205Nmm
2
stress difference. If there is 20

C
temperature difference, 44Nmm
2
stress difference will
generate, namely there are nearly 20IU atness change.
So, it is necessary to compensate the aim atness value at
the exit of the last stand of nishing mill.
4. Numerical model
This numerical analysis work was carried out on the basic of
the real production processes and conditions in ASP1700 hot
strip mill of Anshan Iron and Steel Corporation. The run-out
table is 130m long and the behavior of a strip with a certain
length was investigated. Analysis of thermal stress in the strip
developed during cooling was carried out using ABAQUS Ver-
sion 6.5 (ABAQUS, 2005). A nite element model of the strip
cooling process covering the full length of the run-out table
will be computationally inefcient and costly. One segment of
strip with 6m length was chosen to be the research object. In
the cooling process, the strip is transported on run-out table,
while the cooling prole is stationary in time. For convenience
of calculation, it is assumed that the cooling process is mov-
ing with a static strip. The steel grade of the strip selected to
be calculation object is HP295. The strip is cooled from 880 to
620

C on the run-out table.


4.1. Governing equations of the thermo-mechanical
model
The thermo-mechanical analysis involves solving the tran-
sient heat transfer and thermal stress problem describing the
temperature and thermal stress variations with time in the
strip during cooling. During the cooling process, the temper-
ature distribution in the strip can be calculated using the
governing partial differential equation shown as follows:

x
_

x
(T)
T
x
_
+

y
_

y
(T)
T
y
_
+

z
_

z
(T)
T
z
_
+ q
= c
p
(T)
T
t
(3)
where is the density, c
p
(T)is the temperature dependent
specic heat; (T) is the temperature dependent thermal
conductivity of the material with the subscripts x, y and z rep-
resenting its components in three directions of width, length
and thickness, respectively; T and t are temperature and time,
respectively; q is the heat generation term representing the
internal heat source released due to phase of austenite trans-
formation (Hawbolt et al., 1985)
q = H
i
X
i
t
(4)
where H
i
is the amount of heat of transformation at temper-
ature T
i
and X
i
is the transformed fraction within the time
increment t.
Fig. 4 Meshes of the computation model.
In order to nd the spatial and temporal distribution of
temperature, T(x, y, t), Eq. (3) can be solved by employing
a nite element discretization. After certain mathematical
manipulations, the equations can be reduced to:
[C
e
]{

T
e
} +[K
e
]{T} = {R
e
} (5)
where [C
e
] is the elemental heat capacitance matrix and [K
e
]
is the elemental heat conduction matrix; the vector {R
e
} is
the heat ux (load) vector arising from internal heat genera-
tion, specied surface heating and surface convection; {

T
e
} is
the vector of temperature change with time and {T
e
} is the
temperature vector.
The transient response of the nonlinear system of equa-
tions resulting from the assembly of the system of elemental
equation, Eq. (5) is calculated using a step by step recurrence
technique where temperatures are stored by ABAQUS at the
nodal positions in a solution increment and then interpolated
to the integration point locations before solving the elemental
differential equations.
For a fully coupled temperaturedisplacement analysis,
ABAQUS solves a system of coupled equations represented by
equation (ABAQUS, 2005) shown as follows
_
K
uu
K
uT
K
Tu
K
TT
__
u
T
_
=
_
R
u
R
T
_
(6)
Table 1 Thermal conductivity coefcient and specic
heat depended on temperature
Temperature (

C) Thermal conductivity
coefcient (W/(mK))
Specic heat
(J/(kgK))
550 34.4 692
600 31.8 735
650 28.5 752
700 27.2 866
750 26.2 1021
800 25.8 839
850 25.5 742
900 25.4 725
950 25.5 718
j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146 135
Fig. 5 Thermal expansion coefcient depended on
temperature.
where T and u are the corrections to the incremental
temperature and displacement, respectively; K
ij
are the sub-
matrices of the fully coupled stiffness matrices; and R
T
and
R
u
are the thermal and mechanical residual vectors, respec-
tively. These thermal and mechanical systems of equations
are solved simultaneously using the Newtons method.
4.2. Meshing of the physical model
The length, width and thickness of the strip segment to
be computed are 6, 1200 and 4.0mm, respectively. Model
was established in the rectangular coordinate system, and
direction 1, 2 and 3 stand for length, width and thickness,
respectively. Element type is C3D8T, and element size is
30mm. Meshes of the computation model is shown in Fig. 4.
4.3. Determination of the physical parameters
The material physical parameters varying with temperature
have important effects on the results of computation. It
is necessary to correctly select the physical parameters for
Fig. 7 Plastic characteristic curves depended on
temperature.
ensuring the computation precision of temperature and ther-
mal stress. Specic heat, thermal conductivity coefcient and
linear expansion coefcient were provided by ASP1700 hot
strip mill of Anshan Iron and Steel Corporation as shown in
Table 1 and Fig. 5, respectively. Youngs modulus and Poissons
ratio were determined according to the reference (Zhou et al.,
2003) as shown in Fig. 6.
If stress is larger than material yield stress, material
happens plastic deformation. In ABAQUS, material plastic
characteristic curve depended on temperature is required
based on the relationship curve between true stress and true
strain as shown in Fig. 7.
4.4. Phase transformation model
There will happen phase transformation in the strip during
run-out table cooling. The kinetics of the diffusional trans-
formations of austenite to ferrite and pearlite have been
described for the isothermal condition by Avrami equation
(Serajzadeh, 2003) as follows
X = 1 exp(bt
n
) (7)
where b and n are material parameters that for steels, as
shown in Table 2; t is the elapsed time from the beginning
of the transformation.
Fig. 6 Youngs modulus and Poissons ratio depended on temperature.
136 j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146
Fig. 8 (a) Structure of run-out table cooling and (b) thermal boundary conditions for water cooling and air cooling.
4.5. Boundary conditions
Tosolve the temperature differential equation, it is veryimpor-
tant to dene boundary conditions accurately. The laminar
cooling of the hot rolled strip on the run-out table is a rel-
atively complicated process of heat transfer. The boundary
conditions can be generalized to be convection heat transfer
equation between the strip surface and cooling water and the
radiative equation between the strip and the atmosphere. The
boundary conditions can be described as follows

T
n
= h
w1
(T T
w1
)

T
n
= h
w2
(T T
w2
) +(T
4
T
4
w2
)
(8)
where n is normal direction of strips surface; h
w1
and h
w2
are convection heat transfer coefcients on the strip sur-
face between the cooling water and the air, respectively;
is StefanBoltzmann constant, 5.669710
8
Wm
2
K
4
; is
emissivity; T
w1
and T
w2
are temperatures of cooling water and
atmosphere, respectively.
Just after the exit of the last nishing stand, there exists
a length of about 10m where the strip is cooled in air, called
air cooling zone. Following this region, the strip enters into
Table 2 b and n used in Avrami equation (Serajzadeh,
2003)
Transformation type b(T) n
Austenite to ferrite 14.2exp
_

T620
25.1
_
0.7
Austenite to pearlite 65.3exp
_

T595
4.2
_
3.8
water cooling zone. A certain rows of water jets impinge on
the strip surface to take away the heat in the strip. From the
last bank of water cooling to the coiler, there also exits an
air cooling zone. There will happen forced convection heat
transfer and stable lm boiling in two water owing zones
of impinging zone and parallel owing zone on the strip sur-
face, respectively. Too much computation time is needed to
dene the two kinds of heat transfer conditions very close to
reality. Therefore, to make analysis simple, the total length of
the run-out table has been divided into two different kinds
of cooling zones, namely water cooling and air cooling. The
water cooling zone is treated as a whole part, and one aver-
Fig. 9 Fit curve of end rolling temperature along strip
transverse direction.
j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146 137
Fig. 10 Initial temperature eld of the strip.
age heat ux referred to (Cox et al., 2001) is assumed during
the analysis. The heat ux value can be adjusted to represent
the running speed of the strip. The detailed structure of the
run-out table and thermal boundary conditions can be seen
in Fig. 8.
Mechanical boundary conditions also should be dened
during the thermal stress analysis of the strip cooled on the
run-out table after hot rolling. Boundary Constraint condi-
tions are denedduring the establishment of FEMmodel using
the ABAQUS. Full displacement constraint is applied to one
end of the strip segment, while the other end is assumed
to be free. Two strip edges are assumed to be simply sup-
port condition along y direction, namely normal to the rolling
direction.
4.6. Initial conditions
When steel strip leaves the last stand of nishing mill and
before it enters into cooling zone, one initial temperature eld
and one initial stress distribution already exist. Both of the
initial temperature eld and initial stress are not uniform.
ABAQUS software provides many user subroutine program
functions to fulll loading uneven eld variables.
Actual measurement data of striptemperature along trans-
verse direction at the exit of the last stand nishing mill can
be tted to a fourth order polynomial function of transverse
coordinate using the least squares method (Sun et al., 2004).
By means of user subroutine program UTEMP, initial tempera-
ture eldof fourthorder polynomial functionas showninFig. 9
Fig. 11 Relationship between initial atness and inner stress: (a) edge wave and (b) center wave.
138 j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146
Fig. 12 One example of initial stress in strip, 20IU atness.
was dened. Because the thickness of strip to be analyzed is
very thin, uniforminitial temperature distributionthroughthe
thickness direction of strip was assumed and dened in the
analysis. The result of initial temperature eld loaded on the
strip can be seen in Fig. 10.
After nish rolling, strip will have a certain atness.
Namely, stress distribution already exists in the strip. To sim-
ulate the initial atness, initial stress distribution should be
loaded. This initial stress distribution can be expressed using
relative elongationdifference along transverse directionof the
strip. As shown in Fig. 11,

z
(x), x coordinate and z coordinate
represent the relative elongation difference between center
and edge of strip, width and length directions of strip, respec-
tively. Initial stress can be determined as follows:

z
(x) = E

z
(x) = E(
p
m

p
z
(x)) (9)
where E is Youngs modulus of material with end rolling tem-
perature (MPa);
p
z
(x) is the elongation of ber at x coordinate
(m);
p
m
is the mean elongation of strip along transverse direc-
Fig. 13 Coiling tension distribution along transverse
direction.
Fig. 14 Residual stress distribution with difference initial
atness (Cai, 1998).
tion, and can be calculated by the following equation.

p
m
=
_
b
b

p
z
(x)dx
2b
(10)
where b is one half width of the strip (m). Based on the
large amount of actual atness gauge measurements,
p
z
(x) is
assumed to be a parabolic curve

p
z
(x) = a
0
+a
1
x +a
2
x
2
(11)
where a
0
, a
1
, and a
3
are coefcients of the function which are
determined according to the initial IU distribution.
Same as the initial temperature, initial stress was loaded
using user subroutine program SIGINI, and the result of initial
stress is shown as in Fig. 12.
4.7. Disposition of coiling tension
Hot rolled steel strip moves to downcoiler and will be wound
into coil after cooling on the run-out table. Before the head of
j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146 139
Fig. 15 Initial temperature distribution pattern considered
by Zhou et al. (2003).
stripenters into downcoiler, there is no coiling tensioninstrip.
While coiling tensioninstripshouldbe consideredduring sim-
ulation after strip head enters into downcoiler. Coiling tension
is related to strip thickness prole and coil diameter, as shown
in Fig. 13. Because of the strip crown, coiling tension distri-
bution along transverse direction will vary during the coiling
process. After steel strip is wound to coil, circumferential force
still retains until uncoiling at room temperature because of
the functions of the radial compression and friction between
two layers. This circumferential force distribution and its dis-
tribution pattern also vary with the position of the layer. The
position is closer to the outer layer of the steel coil, the ten-
sion is larger at center while tension is smaller at edge. In
this research, no coiling tension and coiling tension were sep-
arately considered in computation and fullled by means of
user subroutine program DLOAD. The coiling tension is deter-
mined by the following equations:

T
( x) =

T
/3 0 x < 0.4
5

T
(0.8 x)/1.2 0.4 x < 0.8
0 0.8 x < 1.0
(12)
where x is normalized coordinate, x = x/b;

T
= 5.54 MPa.
5. Calculation results and discussion
5.1. Earlier computation results
Researches on residual stress analysis of steel strip during
cooling after hot rolling are very lack, and the results still have
not reached consistency. The residual stress distribution pat-
tern along transverse direction computed by Yoshida (1984c)
and Cai (1998) is that there is tensile stress at center part
while compressive stress at edge part of strip, namely the strip
atness has the trend of developing to be edge wave during
cooling of the strip because of temperature decrease within
strip edge. Fig. 14 is the results calculated by Cai (1998).
Zhou et al. (2003) also has performed numerical analysis
of residual stress developed during cooling of hot rolled strip
on run-out table. Initial temperature distribution along trans-
verse direction considered in computation is shown in Fig. 15
Fig. 16 Residual stress distribution pattern obtained by
Zhou et al. (2003).
Table 3 Chemical composition of steel HP295 used in
simulation (in wt%)
C 0.174
Si 0.014
Mn 0.9
P 0.016
S 0.011
Al 0.02
andhis result, as showninFig. 16, is contrary to that of Yoshida
(1984c) and Cai (1998).
5.2. Result and analysis of this work
In this work, HP295 steel grade that was hot rolled at ASP1700
hot strip mill of Anshan Iron and Steel Corporation was
selected to be the simulation object in the thermal stress cal-
culation model of laminar cooling process and the chemical
composition is shown in Table 3.
Fig. 17 Temperature trajectories of strip surfaces (strip
speed is 6.0m/s and phase transformation is not
considered).
140 j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146
Fig. 18 Longitudinal stress distribution along transverse
direction at different cooling stages without initial stress
and coiling tension.
Firstly, no initial stress and coiling tension were considered
during the computation, and the residual stress induced only
by uneven temperature distribution along transverse direc-
tion and temperature decrease was acquired. And then, initial
stress distribution was considered to simulate thermal stress
in the strip with certain initial atness before entering down-
coiler. At last, initial stress distribution and coiling tension
were loaded at the same time to simulate thermal stress in
the strip after entering downcoiler. Computation procedure
Fig. 19 Longitudinal plastic strain distribution along
transverse direction at different cooling stages without
initial stress and coiling tension.
is divided into three steps. The rst step is air cooling pro-
cess of 12.7m distance from the last stand nishing mill F6
to the rst row of laminar water cooling pipes. Strip velocity
was assumed to be 6.0m/s. Air temperature and its convec-
tive coefcient were assumed to be 30

C and 30Wm
2
K
1
,
respectively. The second work step is water cooling process
lasting 10s, heat ux values on strip top surface and bottom
surface were set to be 2.410
7
and1.810
7
Wm
2
, respec-
tively. The atmosphere temperature was 28

C. The third work


Fig. 20 Flatness measured at exit of last stand nishing mill.
j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146 141
step is also air cooling and the time is 4s. The related param-
eters for boundary conditions are same as those of the rst
work step.
Precision of temperature computation is the foundation
of thermal stress analysis. To prove consistency of the result
of temperature calculation with the product data, end rolling
temperature and coiling temperature recorded by system can
be used. Actually, only the temperature at the center of steel
strip is measured and controlled. The results of the tempera-
ture trajectories on strip top and bottom surfaces agree well
with real industry process as shown in Fig. 17.
Because the transverse stress in steel strip is very small
and the strip atness is mainly attributed by longitudinal
stress distribution along transverse direction, only longitu-
dinal stress and plastic strain are considered in this work.
Figs. 18 and 19 are longitudinal stress and plastic strain distri-
butions along transverse direction at different cooling stages
without initial stress and coiling tension, respectively. The
thermal stress in strip increases as the temperature of strip
decreases rapidly after strip enters into water cooling zone.
During air cooling, thermal stress varies slowly. The reasons
for thermal stress generation are uneven temperature dis-
tribution and high cooling rate. From the results mentioned
above, temperature decrease within strip edge leads to the
residual stress distribution pattern of tensile stress at strip
center regionand compressive stress at strip edge region. That
is to say, the strip atness develops to the trend of edge wave.
Temperature difference induced compressive stress at strip
edge region reaches almost 80MPa, and mainly concentrates
within the range of 120mm to the strip edge. Plastic defor-
mation happens in steel strip during water cooling stage, and
increases as temperature decreases. The change of strip at-
ness to edge wave is attributed by this plastic strain at the
edge region of strip. The format of longitudinal stress distri-
bution agrees well with that obtained by Yoshida (1984c) and
Cai (1998), but is contrary to that of Zhou et al. (2003). The mag-
nitude order of the stress agrees well with that of Zhou et al.
(2003) and Yoshida (1984c), but Cais (1998) result is obviously
larger.
It is difcult to accurately measure the residual stress in
hot rolled steel strip, so there is very little real measurement
data to be used to prove the calculated results. To illustrate
Fig. 21 Strip atness photo picture at the entry side of the
skin pass mill.
Fig. 22 Longitudinal stress distribution along transverse
direction at different cooling stages (with initial stress of
60IU atness, without coiling tension).
Fig. 23 Longitudinal stress distribution along transverse
direction at different cooling stages (with initial stress of
20IU atness, without coiling tension).
that the strip atness will move to edge wave, one exam-
ple of large amount of actual observations is presented here.
One set multi-channel prole gauge and one atness gauge
made by IMS Corporation were installed behind F6 to measure
and record strips crown and atness real time during rolling
in ASP1700 hot strip mill of Anshan Iron and Steel Corpora-
tion. One atness image of strip after nishing rolling can be
recorded as showninFig. 20. Fromthis picture, we cansee that
this strip has a perfect atness at the exit of the last stand of
nishing mill. Because there is no atness gauge before down-
coiler, to know real strip atness after cooling, observations
and measurements at skin pass rolling line must be done.
Fig. 21 is the real atness image of the same strip in Fig. 20
on skin pass rolling line. This strip has an obvious edge wave
shape observed during uncoiling. From comparison between
the atness picture recorded by the atness gauge and the
real atness image after cooling, strip atness at exit of the
last stand nishing mill positively has the trend of changing
to edge wave during the stage of cooling, and that is not our
required nal product atness.
142 j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146
Fig. 24 Longitudinal stress distribution along transverse
direction at different cooling stages (with initial stress of
10IU atness, without coiling tension).
Fig. 25 Longitudinal stress distribution along transverse
direction at different cooling stages (with initial stress of
10IU atness, without coiling tension).
To better control nal atness of hot rolled strip product,
nding an optimal atness value at the exit of the last stand of
nishing mill to compensate the inuence of cooling process
on strip atness on the run-out table has a great meaning for
fullling close loop control of strip atness during hot rolling.
Eight conditions of initial stress loaded on the basis of strip
atness at the exit of nishing mill ranging from 60 to 60IU
were computed, and some calculation results of longitudinal
stress distribution along transverse direction are listed from
Figs. 2225. Magnitude and direction of initials stress have
some certain effects on the nal pattern of longitudinal resid-
ual stress distribution. Whether the residual stress increases
or decreases, direction relationship between initial stress and
thermal stress plays a critical role. Thermal stress direction is
determined by the format of temperature distribution. From
the rules concluded from the thermal image measurements
mentioned above, temperature decrease within strip edge
region is afrmed. Therefore, thermal stress is compressive
at strip edge and tensile at strip center. Initial stress direc-
tion of center wave is opposite to that of thermal stress, so
Fig. 26 Longitudinal stress distribution along transverse
direction at different cooling stages (with initial stress of
60IU atness and coiling tension described in Eq. (12)).
the residual stress will reduce on the condition of center wave
and increase on the condition of edge wave. As shown in the
following Figs. 2225, atness defect of center wave at the
exit of nishing mill will reduce within some certain degree
after cooling on the run-out table. However, if atness defect
is edge wave, edge wave will be more severe. To compensate
the inuences of thermal stress introduced during cooling on
strip atness on the run-out table, strip should be rolled to
be some certain center wave shape. This method is economi-
cal and relative simple because no equipment modication or
devices installation for ensuring even temperature distribu-
tion are needed. From the computation results, the strip with
4mm in thickness and 1200mm in width should be rolled to
be center wave within the range of 1020IU atness, and thus
the product will have a perfect nal atness. The calculation
results in which no coiling tension was considered reect the
atness change rules of strip head before strip enters into the
downcoiler.
Once the strip enters into the downcoiler, then coiling ten-
sion is established in strip. Coiling tension also has effect on
Fig. 27 Longitudinal stress distribution along transverse
direction at different cooling stages (with initial stress of
20IU atness and coiling tension described in Eq. (12)).
j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146 143
Fig. 28 Longitudinal stress distribution along transverse
direction at different cooling stages (with initial stress of
10IU atness and coiling tension described in Eq. (12)).
residual stress distribution in strip, and should be considered
during numerical analysis. Coiling tension was determined
according to Eq. (12), and loaded through user subroutine pro-
gram DLOAD. Calculation results of thermal stress in strip
Fig. 29 Longitudinal stress distribution along transverse
direction at different cooling stages (with initial stress of
10IU atness and coiling tension described in Eq. (12)).
considering both initial stress and coiling tension are shown
as in Figs. 2629. Because of steel strip crown, coiling tension
loaded in strip mainly concentrates only in the center part of
strip width. When coiling tension is considered, stress in the
center part of strip width has a small increase that almost
Fig. 30 The calculation ow chart of the subroutine program HETVAL.
144 j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146
equals to coiling tension loaded. The contribution result of
coiling tension is consistent with the conclusion obtained by
Zhou et al. (2003). In the researches of Cai (1998) and Yoshida
(1984c), no coiling tension was considered. The inuence of
coiling tension on strip atness is little.
The results mentioned above were obtained through the
calculation in which the phase transformation was not con-
sidered. Phase transformation will happen in the steel strip
during its cooling on the run-out table. The phase trans-
formation latent heat will be released during the phase
transformation process, and has an inuence on the tempera-
ture prole in the steel. Therefore, the phase transformations
from austenite to ferrite and pearlite were also considered in
the thermal stress analysis in the steel strip during the cool-
ing process. The subroutine program HETVAL was employed
to calculate the phase transformation latent heat for realiz-
ing the coupling of temperature and phase transformation.
The detailed calculation ow chart of the subroutine program
HETVAL is shown in Fig. 30.
Strip speed is another factor to be considered during the
thermal stress analysis. At the end, the thermal stress gen-
eration process of the strip, in which phase transformation is
considered and strip runs with a higher speed of 12.0m/s, was
analyzed. No initial stress and coiling tensionwere considered
during computation. Computationprocedure was divided into
ve steps to simulate the interrupted cooling style of the steel
strip. The rst step lasting 1 second is also to consider the air
cooling process of 12.7mdistance fromthe last standnishing
mill F6 to the rst rowof laminar water cooling pipes. The sec-
ond work step is water cooling process lasting 5s, and the heat
ux values on strip top surface and bottom surface were set
to be 5.610
7
and 4.910
7
Wm
2
, respectively. The third
work step is also air cooling and the time is 4.5s. The fourth
step is water cooling procedure of 0.5s which is the precision
control segment of the coiling temperature, and the heat ux
values on strip top surface and bottom surface were set to be
3.610
7
and 2.910
7
Wm
2
, respectively. The last step is
air cooling before strip enters into downcoiler. For all the air
cooling procedures, the atmosphere temperature, air temper-
Fig. 31 Temperature trajectories of strip surfaces and
middle plane (strip speed is 12.0m/s and phase
transformation is considered).
Fig. 32 Longitudinal stress distribution along transverse
direction at different cooling stages without initial stress
and coiling tension.
Fig. 33 Longitudinal stress distribution along transverse
direction at different cooling stages (with 10IU atness of
initial stress, without coiling tension).
ature and its convective coefcient were assumed to be 28

C,
30

C and 30Wm
2
K
1
, respectively.
Fig. 31 is the temperature calculation results of top surface,
bottom surface and middle plane of steel strip at its center
place during its cooling on the run-out table. There is a great
difference between Figs. 31 and 17. In Fig. 31, the tempera-
ture on the surfaces, especially on the top surface, decrease
more rapidly due to the high cooling strength and has a cer-
tain rebound, and then decreases again during water cooling
procedure of the steel strip. This kind of temperature rebound
is mainly resulted by the function of phase transformation
latent heat. We can get the conclusion that it is reasonable
to consider the phase transformation in steel strip during its
cooling process.
Figs. 3234 are the calculation results of longitudinal stress
distribution along transverse direction in the steel strip under
the conditions mentioned above including phase transfor-
mation with three different initial atness values of 0, 10
and 10IU. During the calculations, coiling tension was not
j ournal of materi als processi ng technology 2 0 7 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 130146 145
Fig. 34 Longitudinal stress distribution along transverse
direction at different cooling stages (with 10IU atness of
initial stress, without coiling tension).
considered. The thermal stress distribution shape calculated
under the conditions mentioned above has no difference to
that having no phase transformation behavior and a low
speed. That is to say the changing trend of strip atness on
the run-out table is still to the edge wave defect. There are
some numerical differences in the thermal stress results in
steel strip with a higher running speed as shown in Figs. 3234
compared to those not considering phase transformation and
having a low running speed on the run-out table at the same
initial conditions as shown in Figs. 18, 24 and 25. There is
nearly 5MPa compressive stress increase in the strip edge
region while there is almost no change within the center part
of the strip. The reason for this compressive stress increase is
that the strip with a more rapid speed has higher cooling rate
at the edge region than that with a relative lower speed. There
also another difference, namely the generating speed of ther-
mal stress is higher in the strip having a more rapid cooling
speed than that with lower cooling speed. That is to say that
the strip with a higher rolling speed will have a higher cooling
speed to be cooled to a certain coiling temperature, and then
thermal stress increases more rapidly in it.
6. Conclusions
(1) Large amount of measurements of strip thermal images
were carried out at the exit of last stand of nishing mill
andat the entry of the downcoiler. Transverse temperature
distribution rules of strip were concluded. There is some
degree temperature decrease within strip edge region dur-
ing the whole cooling process on the run-out table.
(2) The thermal stress developed in steel strip during cool-
ing on the run-out table is attributed for the nonuniform
temperature distribution along transverse direction of
strip and the high cooling rate. The thermal stress may
cause local plastic deformation across the strip and con-
sequently introduces residual stress and strip atness
defect.
(3) A numerical analysis of the thermal stress generated
during cooling of hot rolled strip on the run-out table
was performed by means of the nite element program
ABAQUS. There is the thermal stress distribution pattern
of tensile longitudinal stress at strip center and com-
pressive longitudinal stress at strip edge region for the
temperature drop in strip edge region. Plastic deformation
occurs in the strip edge region. It is reasonable to consider
the phase transformation in steel strip during its cooling
process. The strip with a higher rolling speed will have a
higher cooling speed to be cooled to a certain coiling tem-
perature, and then thermal stress increases more rapidly
in it.
(4) Temperature drop within strip edge region will make strip
atness develop to the trend of edge wave defect, and
that has been proved by the actual strip atness observa-
tions after cooling to ambient temperature. This viewpoint
agrees well with the actual production condition.
(5) To better control the nal shape quality of hot rolled strip,
one compensation control strategy named slight center
wave rolling is proposed based on the conclusion (4) in
this work. The main idea is that steel strip is rolled with
slight center wave at the exit of the last stand of nish-
ing mill to compensate the atness change trend of edge
wave occurring at cooling stage. This measurement has
the advantages of small investment, easy implemented
and convenience for troubleshooting, compared with the
methods of realizing uniform transverse temperature dis-
tribution in strip such as water ow rate control along
transverse direction and edge masking on the run-out
table.
(6) Fromthe calculationresults of the researchsteel stripwith
1200mm in width and 4mm in thickness, the aim atness
value at the exit of the last stand of nishing mill should
be determined within the range of 1020IU atness.
(7) This FE analysis model is capable of providing the support-
ing technology for fullling the end rolling strip atness
compensation control strategy in the online strip shape
control model.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Anshan Iron and Steel Corpo-
ration for the support to this work. In addition, special thanks
are extended to Dr. Lin Zhao, Xiaobo Guo (senior engineer) and
Lili Zhong (senior engineer) for their cooperation and assis-
tance.
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