Research on three-roller bending of aluminum profiles considering roller center distance and radius

The three-roller bending process is widely used in plate and profile processing owing to its versatility and high processing efficiency. Currently, the optimization of roll bending mainly focuses on the adjustment of the profile geometric parameters and the vertical displacement of the upper roller, ignoring the influence of the lower roller center distance and radius of the roll bending machine on the forming quality. Therefore, this paper considers the lower roller center distance and radius that affect the forming accuracy of metal profiles as the starting point and conducts an in-depth analysis of the three-roller bending process. Initially, a mathematical model of three-roller bending and the ABAQUS finite element model are established, and the mathematical model is subsequently fitted and refined through finite element simulation. The experimental results demonstrated that the average error is less than 10% when the refined roll bending function is used to calculate the profile forming radius. To further enhance the precision and quality of three-roller bending, this paper employed a finite element simulation to analyze the effects of lower roller center distance and radius on the profile springback rate, plastic strain, and remaining straight edge length. The results indicated that with a constant vertical displacement of the upper roller, increasing the lower roller center distance led to an increased profile springback rate, decreased plastic strain fluctuation, and increased remaining straight edge length. Conversely, increasing the lower roller radius resulted in a decreased profile springback rate, increased plastic strain fluctuation, and decreased the remaining straight edge length. Finally, the effect of each factor on profile formation is comprehensively analyzed using an orthogonal experimental method, and the optimal roll bending process parameters within the experimental range are determined.