Quantitative prediction of reduction in large pipe setting round process

The control manner during the process to ensure the quality of pipe products mainly relies on the operator’s experience, so it is very necessary to study the setting round process and obtain its spring-back law. The setting round process is shaping an oval section pipe into circular section, so it is difficult to provide a quantificational analysis for its spring-back process because of the curvature inequality of pipe section neutral layer. However, the spring-back law of the circle-oval process can be easily predicted. The experimental method is firstly used to establish the equivalent effect between the setting round process and the circle-oval process. The setting round process can be converted into the circle-oval process. There are two difficulties in the theoretical analysis for the circle-oval process: elastic-plastic bending problem of curved beam; statically indeterminate problem. A quantitative analytic method for the circle-oval process is presented on the basis of combination of the spring-back law of plane curved beam with the element dividing idea in finite element method. The ovality after unloading versus the relative reduction is plotted with analytical and experimental results respectively, which shows a fair agreement. Finally, the method of quantitative prediction of reduction for large pipe setting round is given based on the equivalent effect and the analytical results. Five pipes, which are needed to be set round, are used to carry out experiment so as to verify this method. The results of verification experiment indicates that, in the experimental range, the residual ovality are all under 0.35% after the once only setting round with the theoretical prediction reductions. It is much less than the 1% requirement of pipe standard. Applying the established theoretical analysis is able to correct the pipe ovality with sufficient accuracy, which provides theoretical direction to plant use.