Abstract: In order to study the relationship between the subsectional cooling system and section shape of aluminum strip, a temperature field model has been built based on the alternating finite difference method. With the model, issues such as work roll thermal contour under different cooling water distributions, quantitative relationship between cooling water and thermal crown, and the evolution of thermal crown when changing cooling water have been researched. The results shows that subsectional cooling system has a strong control ability of local thermal expansion; when the width of aluminum strip is 1 500 mm, the relation between cooling water and thermal crown is quadratic; and the changing rate of thermal crown is independent with the amount of cooling water. Based on the conclusions above, work roll thermal expansion can be controlled quantitatively by the cooling water, accordingly providing an effective way of controlling section shape of aluminum strip.

Key words: Aluminum, Finite-difference method, Hot rolling, Shape control, Subsectional cooling