• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.118-125
• /
• 2015

The roll-forming process is a highly productive incremental forming process and is suitable for manufacturing thin, high-strength steel products. Recently, this process has been considered one of the most productive processes in manufacturing high-strength steel automotive structural parts. However, it is very difficult to develop the roll-forming process when the cross-sectional shape of the product changes in the longitudinal direction. In this study, a roll-forming process for manufacturing high-strength steel automotive parts with a linearly variable symmetric hat-type cross-section was developed. The forming rolls were designed by the 3D CAD system, CATIA. Additionally, the designed forming rolls were modified by the simulation through the 3D elastic-plastic finite element analysis software, MARC. The results of the finite element analysis show that the final roll-forming roll can successfully produce the desired high-strength steel automotive part with a variable cross-section.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.39-45
• /
• 2022

In this study, we investigated whether the interference occurring in forming roll surfaces could be eliminated by increasing the radius of the variable section forming rolls. The surfaces of the rolls capable of forming products with different flange heights and bend angles with the bend line tilted at an angle of 1° from the longitudinal axis were created using the general CAD software CATIA. Roll interferences were determined for the change in the forming roll radius. The minimum gaps between the upper and lower roll surfaces were measured for the change in the forming roll radius, and the roll interferences were calculated from the difference between the measured value and the thickness of the product. It was observed that the thickness of the product had a slight effect on the roll interference when the thickness was between 0.8 and 1.2 mm. It was also observed that the roll interference could be eliminated by increasing the roll radius.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.73-82
• /
• 2016

Recently, automobile industries have been developing many structural automotive parts made of thin, high-strength steel strips to produce safer and more environmentally friendly cars. The roll forming process has been considered one of the most efficient processes in manufacturing high-strength steel parts because it is a high-speed process that forms sheets in increments. However, most automotive parts vary longitudinally in their cross-sections. Therefore, it is difficult to apply the roll forming process to automotive parts made of high-strength steel. A variable section roll forming process has been proposed in recent studies. The rotational axes of the forming rolls are fixed, and the forming rolls have three-dimensional shape. As such, the cross-section of the part varies linearly along its length, and the angle between the bend line and longitudinal axis is less than 1 degree. Thus, the rate of cross-sectional variation along the length is relatively small. In this study, the rate of cross-sectional change along the length of a forming roll has been increased. Moreover, the angle between the bend line and longitudinal axis has been increased up to 15 degrees. The variable sections of the forming rolls have been designed for high strength steel parts with a symmetric u-type cross-section that varies linearly and symmetrically along the longitudinal axis.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
• /
• v.22 no.7
• /
• pp.401-406
• /
• 2013

The use of roll-formed products increases every year due to its advantages, such as high production rates, reduced tooling cost and improved quality. However, till now, it is limited to part profiles with constant cross section. In recent years, the flexible roll forming process, which allows variable cross sections of profiles by adaptive roll stands, was developed. In this study, an attempt to optimize profile design for the flexible roll forming process was performed. An equation that predicts the longitudinal strain for part geometries with variable cross-sections was proposed. The relationship between geometrical parameters and the longitudinal strain was analyzed and investigations on the optimal profile design were performed. Experiments were conducted with a lab-scale roll forming machine to validate the proposed equation. The results show that the profile design method proposed in this study is feasible and parts with variable cross sections can be successfully fabricated with the flexible roll forming process.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
• /
• v.23 no.6
• /
• pp.369-375
• /
• 2014

Flexible roll forming allows profiles to have variable cross-sections. However, the profile may have some shape errors, such as, warping which is a major defect. The shape error is induced by geometrical deviations in both the concave zone and the convex zone. In the current study, flexible roll forming was modeled with FE simulations to analyze the shape error and the longitudinal strain distribution along the flange section over the profile. A distribution of analytically calculated longitudinal strains was used to develop relationships between the shape error and the longitudinal strain distribution as a function of the defined shape parameters for the profile. The FE simulations showed that the shape error is primarily affected by the deviations between the distribution of analytically calculated longitudinal strain and the longitudinal strain distribution of the profile. The results show that the shape error can be controlled by designing the shape parameters to control the geometrical deviations at the flange section in the transition zones.