An ALE Model for Numerical Simulation of Cold Roll Forming Process

In this paper, the Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian formalism is used to compute the steady state of a 3D U-shaped cold roll forming process. Compared to the Lagrangian case, this method allows the use of a refined mesh near the tools, leading to an accurate representation of the bending of the sheet with a limited computational time. The main problem of this kind of simulation is the rezoning of the nodes on the free surfaces of the sheet. A modified iterative isoparametric smoother is used to manage this geometrically complex and CPU expensive task.