Precision control of the width of slabs, plates and strips, is vital for product quality and production economy in steel mills. A common practice in the production line is to perform vertical rolling and reduce the width in the roughing mill. However, the formation of so called 'dog-bone' at the edge of the slab would affect the final width after horizontal rolling that follows. Therefore, it is essential to predict and control the dog-bone shape. In this paper we present a new model for the prediction of the dog-bone shape during vertical rolling in roughing mills. The model is developed on the basis of the minimum energy principle for a rigid-plastic material and a three-dimensional admissible velocity field. The predictions accuracy of the proposed model is examined via comparison with predictions from finite element simulation and also with experimental data.KEY WORDS: vertical rolling; finite element method; dog-bone shape; minimum energy principle; admissible velocity field.

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