Force Analysis and Curve Design for Laying Pipe in Loop Laying Head of Wire Rod Mills

Abstract Laying head is a high-precision engineering device in hot-rolled high speed wire rod production line. Previously research works are focused on the laying pipe wear-resisting. Laying pipe curve design method based on wire rod kinematics and dynamics analyses are not reported before. In order to design and manufacture the laying pipe, the motion and force process of the wire rod in the laying pipe should be studied. In this paper, a novel approach is proposed to investigate the force modeling for hot-rolled wire rod in laying pipe. An idea of limited element method is used to analysis and calculates the forces between laying pipe inner surface and wire rod. The design requirements of laying pipe curve for manufacturing are discussed. The kinematics and dynamics modeling for numerical calculation are built. A laying pipe curve equation is proposed by discussing design boundary conditions. Numerical results with different laying pipe curves design parameters are plotted and compared. The proposed approach performs good result which can be applied for laying pipe curve design and analysis for engineering application.