Plate profile control during ultra-thin strip rolling utilizing work roll edge contact

During ultra-thin strip cold rolling, a phenomenon of work roll edge contact always appears. Very serious work roll edge contact and an edge wave occur when the strip thickness decreases; however, it is difficult to eliminate these problems with traditional control methods. To accurately analyse the influence of the mechanism of work roll edge contact on the strip shape control for ultra-thin strips, a finite-length semi-infinite body model of the roll is established based on the boundary element method. Then, a new work roll edge contact model which is applied to the rolling process of a laboratory twenty-high mill was established. The results show that when very serious work roll edge contact and an edge wave occur, the strip shape defect cannot be eliminated by traversing the first intermediate roll. Therefore, the roll gap is adjusted by utilizing work roll edge contact to improve its profile.