3D Thermal Mechanical Coupled Elasto-Plastic Finite Element Analysis in the Whole Rolling Process of H-Beam

In the H-beam rolling process, the deformations and temperature field of workpiece significantly influence the mechanical properties due to the change of product microstructure. Prediction of them is important for the groove design and passes sequences. To get the deformation behavior and the temperature field of workpiece, commercial FEM program LS-DYNA has been used to analyze the whole process of H-beam rolling. The approach is based on 3D thermal mechanical coupled finite element method. The rolling process is divided into several units for calculation. The mesh of workpiece is rebuilt in the simulation for reducing the influence of element distortion. The result shows that, the temperature at the wed to flange position maintains the highest during the whole rolling process, while area of the web the lowest. After the rolling, temperature difference is above 150K between the web’s surface and flange’s inside surface, approximate 130K on the flange’s outside surface and 200K in the cross section. The simulation results show good agreement with the measured temperature data.