3D-FE simulation of inhomogeneous stress and strain distributions in cold profiled ring rolling process under different hardening coefficients

Cold profiled ring rolling is an advanced continuous local metal forming technology widely used for manufacturing various seamless complex-section rings. Investigating the stress and strain distributions (SSD) is very significant for rapidly predicting the defects and improving the quality of deformed rings. The non-uniform SSD in T-shaped cold ring rolling with different hardening exponents are investigated based on 3D-FE simulation. The results show: 1 despite the difference in hardening exponent, the compressive effect of stress is larger near the outer-surface and decreases toward the core; it increases from the core to contact inner-surface but decreases from the core to the non-contact inner surface 2 the deformation around the groove fillet is larger and more non-uniform 3 the surface layer of the filling part near the fillet deforms a little smaller but still non-uniformly, the tensile principal stress components increases and the hydrostatic stress is positive, resulting in poor plasticity.