A hot rolling schedule of non-oriented electrical steel of the same strip width suffers from severe uneven roll wear, which leads to high spots and excessive edge drop. To eliminate these shape defects, a ‘keep-smooth’ shifting strategy of the taper roll was proposed: the strategy aimed at a smooth roll wear contour and was achieved by a varying-rate shifting mode. A roll wear model was developed to predict the evolution of the wear contour under different shifting parameters, and the optimal parameters were obtained by the adaptive particle swarm optimisation algorithm. The effect of the new shifting strategy on the strip profile was studied based on a 3D finite element rolling model. The industrial application verified the new taper roll shifting strategy, as both the edge drop and high spots were alleviated and the rolling length of a schedule was extended by about 10 km.

In order to make up for the deficiency of the traditional austenite deformation resistance model and the existing rolling theory in the gage and shape control of hot rolled non-oriented electrical steel, the mathematical models related to phase transformation are established by regression analysis and then written to be ABAQUS subroutines, which are subsequently embedded into the heat transfer model and rolls-strip coupling model. The finite element models are used to accurately predict the transverse distribution of the temperature field and phase field, and analyze the effect of phase transformation and latent heat on the total roll force, distribution of per unit roll force and roll gap profile. The transverse transformation difference is induced by the temperature difference along strip width direction. The latent heat contributes to the uniformity of temperature field and phase field. The total roll force and center gage are reduced due to the phase transformation, but the adjustment of roll force on the crown is enhanced and the rolling pressure spikes are eliminated due to the appearance of ferrite phase in the edge of strip. The roll force distribution and roll gap profile are weakly dependent on the latent heat, but primarily influenced by the transformation.

The purpose of this article is to solve the uneven deformation problem of electrical steel strip caused by high-temperature phase transition during hot rolling process. The hot rolling process of electrical steel strip is built by ABAQUS software, importing the constitutive model of electrical steel. The effect of temperature drop in the edge of electrical steel strip on the profile and flatness of strip is studied. Simulation results show that the strip edge temperature drop has great effect on hot rolling process of electrical steel strip. When electrical steel strip is in single-phase state, the strip edge temperature drop can reduce the strip crown, but also lead to larger rolling pressure and local high point height in the strip edge. When electrical steel strip is in two-phase state, the local high point height in the strip edge does not exist, but the strip edge temperature drop can lead to larger strip crown.