Roll wear prediction model for finishing stands of hot strip mill

Roll wear in a hot strip mill (HSM) is a detrimental process, which progressively worsens the rolls. This necessitates replacement of the rolls after rolling a number of strips. Roll wear adversely affects the strip shape and the performance of a mill. It is important, therefore, to quantify roll wear during the rolling process. The present paper proposes a wear model for prediction of the wear profile of the rolls at the finishing stands of a hot strip mill. Initially, a roll force model was developed to calculate the roll force at each stand by considering various factors such as the strip thickness and width, mean flow stress (MFS), and roll diameter for each pass. The roll force calculated by the model was subsequently integrated with the roll wear model for calculation of the wear along the roll barrel. The effects of the continuous variable crown (CVC) profile of the roll and roll shift were also included in the wear calculation. The wear profile predicted by this model was validated experimentally in the plant. Predicted values match closely with those obtained from experiment. The model has the potential to be used as an efficient online method to predict the wear profile within a reasonable computational time.