Effects of axial rolls motions on radial–axial rolling process for large-scale alloy steel ring with 3D coupled thermo-mechanical FEA

Radial–axial ring rolling (RARR) is an advanced plastic forming technique which is widely used to manufacture large-scale seamless rings. Compared with pure radial ring rolling, a pair of axial rolls are added to control the axial deformation of the ring during the RARR process. The motions of the axial rolls are very important to the RARR process since they have enormous influence on the stability of the process as well as the quality of the rolled ring. But during the RARR process, the motions of the axial rolls are very complicated, and how to reasonable control them always is a difficulty in the actual RARR production which limits the development and application of the RARR. In this paper, the ranges of motion parameters of the axial rolls are reasonable determined firstly, then a 3D elastic–plastic and coupled thermo-mechanical FE model of RARR is explored using the dynamic explicit code ABAQUS/Explicit. Based on the reliable 3D FE model, the effects of the axial rolls motions on the RARR process are investigated. The research results provide valuable guidelines for the motion control of the axial rolls in the actual RARR production.