Effect of the Kinematic Hardening in the Simulations of the Straightening of Long Rolled Profiles

Residual stresses and lack of straightness appear during the cooling of sheet piles where the initial temperature field is not homogeneous. To meet the standards, the long hot rolled pieces are straightened using a series of rollers placed alternately above and below the pieces with shifts which create a succession of bendings. The process is modeled to study the impact of the industrial parameters (the duration of the cooling and the rollers positions), to improve the final geometry and to reduce the residual stresses. Tests are carried out on this structural steel to observe the material behavior, then material laws are chosen and the parameters of these laws are defined using an inverse method. Two sets of material data are obtained: for the first one, the hardening is supposed to be isotropic, and for the second one, additional tests are performed to describe isotropic and kinematic hardenings. The cooling followed by the straightening is then simulated by the finite element method with these two sets of data. The comparison of the rollers forces, the deformation and the residual stresses show the impact of the kinematic hardening on such a process where the material undergoes a succession of tensions and compressions. The real forces applied by the rollers, the real curvature of the interlocks at the end of the straightening process and the distribution of the residual longitudinal stresses measured on the web using the ring core method are used to validate the numerical model.