Yield strength mapping in the cross section of ERW pipes considering kinematic hardening and residual stress

In the ERW (electric resistance welding) pipe manufacturing, material properties, process conditions and settings strongly influences the mechanical performances of the final product, as well as they can make them to be not uniform and to change from point to point in the pipe. The present research work proposes an integrated numerical model for the study of the whole ERW process, considering roll forming, welding and sizing stations, allowing to infer the influence of the process parameters on the final quality of the pipe, in terms of final shape and residual stress. The developed numerical model has been initially validated comparing the dimensions of the pipe derived from the simulation results with those of industrial production, proving the reliability of the approach. Afterwards, by varying the process parameters in the numerical simulation, namely the roll speed, the sizing ratio and the friction factor, the influence on the residual stress in the pipe, at the end of the process and after each station, is studied and discussed along the paper.