Adjustment of Rollers in the Flexible Roll Forming Unit for the Production of Different Types of Straight Pipes

Abstract

Abstract. The flexible roll process forms the pipes with different dimensions from the continuous strips or coils by changing only a few rollers or even without changing any roller. To further improve the productivity, this paper presents an adjusting technique which uses the excessive bending effect in the three-point flexible forming to modify roller patterns. The modified roller patterns are then used to calculate the position and angle for each passing roller in the rough forming part. Finally, the positions and angles of the rollers are assigned to position parameters of the rollers in the flexible roll forming unit, especially when the unit is beginning to form and weld a pipe with a new specification. An experiment of the production of straight pipes with different dimensions by the unit validates the feasibility of this technique.