Analyses of Non-Kinematic Conical Roll Bending Process With Conical Rolls

High quality cones can be successfully obtained in kinematic conical roll bending process due to the no-sliding between the conical rolls and the plate. However, the performance of the process is limited because the conical rolls cannot be reused to produce other cones with different size. For the purpose of reusing the existing conical rolls to reduce the manufacturing cost, an attachment is added to the top edge of the plate. In such configuration, the top side of the conical rolls slides over the plate to reduce the local velocity near the top edge. The appropriate velocity near the top edge of the plate makes it possible to roll the plate as using the kinematic conical roll bending process. This paper deals with the modeling and simulation of such non-kinematic conical roll bending process based on the finite element method. The numerical simulation results give the relation between the gap size of the bent cone and the friction at the plate/attachment contact. Well bent cones were obtained compared with the ideal cones.