Simulation of cage roll forming process of ERW pipes

Cage roll forming is an advanced and highly productive forming method of Electric Resistance Welded (ERW) pipes, and has been widely applied in the manufacturing of pipes. Due to the complexity of the cage roll forming process, few studies on the analysis of cage roll forming has been found and corresponding industrial practice depends greatly on experience rather than science-based design. In this paper, the whole cage roll forming process has been simulated with the explicit elasto-plastic finite element code LS-DYNA and the results of cage roll forming simulation are introduced. The Effective Plastic Strain (EPS) and deformed geometries are predicted during steel strip passing through different forming stages. The key characteristics of deformation configurations, such as the opening distances of trip edges and circumferential length are calculated and compared with practical measurement and good agreement is shown.