Elasto-plastic bending of steel strip in a hot-dip galvanizing line

A quasi-static model of axially moving steel strips in a continuous hot-dip galvanizing line is presented. The model provides the bending line of the strip and takes into account the history of elasto-plastic deformation. The numerical integration of the material model of elasto-plastic deformation is algorithmically separated from the solution of the boundary value problem of the bending line by pre-computing sets of one-dimensional candidate relations between the strip curvature and the bending moment. Using this model, the influence of different roll positions in the zinc bath on the mean displacement of the strip at the gas wiping dies and the maximum lateral curvature of the strip (crossbow) can be efficiently calculated and analyzed.