Speaker
Description
The work introduces a unified virtual process chain for rail production that combines roll pass design, hot rolling, differential quenching of the rail head, and final straightening within a single simulation route. The first stage is carried out in QKaliber, where analytical models are used to evaluate pass geometry together with the main process variables, including deformation, thermal state, rolling speed, and force–energy characteristics. These fast calculations support selection of feasible pass schedules and allow potentially critical loads on rolls to be identified before detailed numerical analysis.
The verified roll pass design is subsequently imported into QForm UK for finite element simulation of rail rolling. For the heat-treatment stage, boundary conditions generated by a dedicated CFD model are transferred to QForm UK to reproduce differential cooling of the rail head. This coupled methodology captures nonuniform heat exchange, local temperature gradients, and phase transformation kinetics during quenching, while preserving process-specific effects such as air-flow distribution and cooling intensity.
The final stage addresses rail straightening and examines how inherited temperature fields and residual stresses affect the final geometry of the product. Taken together, the proposed framework provides an integrated digital representation of rail manufacturing and demonstrates the value of combining analytical design tools with FEM and CFD models. Such an approach can shorten process development, improve product consistency, and increase the durability of rolls in modern rolling mills.
| Speaker Company/University | Company - Micas Simulations Ltd., 107 Oxford Road, Oxford, UK |
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