Mechanism investigation and strategies for reducing residual stress at open ends of the roll-formed part

Increasing geometrical accuracy at open ends of the roll-formed part is difficult due to the release of residual stress after end cutting.In this work, a typical rail with a high requirement of geometry accuracy was selected to realize the behaviors of residual stress release.First, residual stress distribution after roll forming is discussed in detail by finite element analysis with ABAQUS.In addition, two different approaches are proposed to check their capabilities in reducing the residual stress level.The results indicate that both additional rolling passes and multiple bending processes are beneficial to reducing uniform residual stress.