Thermo-mechanical coupled analysis of hot ring rolling process

A 3D rigid-plastic and coupled thermo-mechanical FE model for hot ring rolling(HRR) was developed based on DEFORM 3D software, then coupled heat transferring, material flow and temperature distribution of the ring in HRR were simulated and the effects of process parameters on them were analyzed. The results show that the deformation nonuniformity of ring blank increases with the increase of the rotational speed of driver roll and friction factor or the decrease of the feed rate of idle roll and initial temperature of ring blank. The temperature nonuniformity of ring blank decreases with the increase of the feed rate of idle roll or the decrease of initial temperature of ring blank and friction factor. There is an optimum rotational speed of driver roll under which the temperature distribution of ring blank is the most uniform. The results obtained can provide a guide for forming parameters optimization and quality control.