Materials and Manufacturing Processes, 20: 459478, 2005

Copyright Taylor & Francis, Inc.

ISSN: 1042-6914 print/1532-2475 online
DOI: 10.1081/AMP-200053462
REGULATING CROWN AND FLATNESS DURING HOT
ROLLING: A MULTIOBJECTIVE OPTIMIZATION STUDY
USING GENETIC ALGORITHMS
R. Nandan, R. Rai, R. Jayakanth, S. Moitra, and N. Chakraborti
Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of
Technology, Kharagpur, W.B., India
A. Mukhopadhyay
Research and Development Division, TATA Steel, Jamshedpur,
Jharkhand, India
A genetic algorithms-based multioptimization study has been carried out for the hot
rolling practice in an integrated steel plant. The aim is to identify the parameter
settings and rolling schedules that would result in the optimum values of crown and
atnesstwo major parameters related to the geometric tolerances in the rolled sheet.
Two objective functions and some appropriate constraints have been formulated for this
purpose, and two different evolutionary algorithms are tried out on them. The optimized
results are presented in the forms of Pareto fronts and discussed in the context of the
actual process.
Key Words: Crown; Flatness; Genetic algorithms; Hot rolling; Multiobjective evolutionary
computation; Multiobjective optimization; Pareto front; Rolling.
1. INTRODUCTION
This article deals with a multiobjective optimization scheme that we have
applied to the hot rolling process practiced in the integrated steel plants, by
using biologically inspired genetic algorithms [14]. The applicability of this study
is in fact, even more specic. The quality of hot strips is governed primarily
by mechanical properties, dimensional tolerances, and surface properties. This
study was undertaken by using two objective functions; the rst one resulted
in a minimization of roll change cost, and the second one ensured that the
atness and crown, two widely used quantiers for the dimensional requirements
of the rolled strips [5], are well within some specic acceptable limits. Two
different algorithms: (1) distance-based Pareto genetic algorithms (DPGA) [6] and
(2) strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm (SPEA) [7] were successfully used to
accomplish the optimization task, and the hot rolling practice at TATA Steel,
Jamshedpur, India, was taken as a paradigm case. We begin with a basic description
of the optimization problem that has been tackled here.
Received March 30, 2004; Accepted July 11, 2004
Address correspondence to A. Mukhopadhyay, Research and Development Division, TATA
Steel, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand 831001, India; E-mail: ananyam@lot.tatasteel.com
459
460 NANDAN ET AL.
2. MODELING THE HOT ROLLING PROCESS
In this study, we primarily focused on two different aspects of hot rolling: 1)
the rolling schedule (i.e., the sequence in which the strips are to be rolled during
a particular campaign) and 2) the dimensional requirements, expressed in terms of
parameters such as crown and atness, which result in the rolled strips. Both the
issues are further discussed below.
2.1. The Cofn Schedule Versus Schedule-Free Rolling
In the hot rolling mill, the slabs from the caster are not rolled in any random
order; rather, they are arranged in discrete batches or the so-called turns in industrial
nomenclature. After one batch is rolled, the rolls in each stand of the nishing mill
are changed. The sequence of slabs in each batch is predetermined and entails prior
planning, based on the parameters like exit thickness, hardness, and width of the
strip coming out of the last stand. This scheduling at the entry side has got a direct
impact on the dimensional accuracy and surface nish of the strips at their exit
and needs to be optimized. In many good rolling schedules, the staple materials are
sequenced in such a way that each slab remains lesser in width than its predecessor.
In the initial stage, however, few slabs are sent to the rolling mill in an ascending
order of their width, simply to warm up the rolls through heat generation. The
sequence of widths during one turn, therefore, assumes the shape of a short-necked
cofn (Fig. 1), where one also needs to ensure that none of the crucial properties
of the slabs, (e.g., width and hardness) would widely vary between one slab and
the next.
Traditionally, a scheduling routine is run to achieve this sequence, often
relying heavily on the human schedulers. However, it is quite possible to roll
effectively without forming an exact cofn. The so-called schedule-free rolling is
also practiced effectively in many steel plants. In this study, we have adopted a
mathematically rigorous optimization strategy to come up with an acceptable hot
rolling schedule that would ensure an overall minimum of the crucial property
jumps during a particular turn without imposing any strict requirements for the
cofn formation. The further details will follow in an appropriate section.
2.2. Crown and Flatness
Crown refers to the difference between the center thickness and the mean of
the edge thickness in the rolled sheet, and atness quanties its waviness (Fig. 2).
These are the two parameters of utmost interest to any steelmaker, because they
often become instrumental for the acceptance or rejection of the rolled at products.
Referring to Fig. 2, crown () is characterized as:
= Y
(X
1
+X
2
)
2
(1)
The location at which the measurements of X
1
and X
2
are taken actually differs
from plant to plant. In this study, we have assumed it to be 40mm from the edge
in either side, which is the current practice at TATA Steel.
REGULATING CROWN AND FLATNESS DURING HOT ROLLING 461
Figure 1 Schematic of a cofn schedule.
Crown develops in the hot rolled strips as a culmination of several factors. In
many hot rolling mills, TATA Steel included, both the upper and lower work rolls
are not exactly at but are used with a sh-above-sh conguration (Fig. 3). Axial
shifting of these rolls results in a continuously variable crown (CVC) system, and
the crown gets imparted to the rolled strip. In addition, crown builds up owing to
a number of other factors. Processes, such as roll wear, its bending, and thermal
distortion, all contribute signicantly toward it and need to be incorporated in the
optimization scheme.
Flatness, on the other hand, comprises waviness of two different kinds. In edge
waviness, the waves are present near the edges of the strip, whereas in center buckle,
the waves are present at its center (Fig. 4). Both of them are manifested during hot
rolling due to differential elongation of the strip across its width. This differential
elongation is directly related to a term called per unit crown change (o), usually
Figure 2 Denition of crown.
462 NANDAN ET AL.
Figure 3 CVC rolls with roll shifting: a) neutral crown; b) negative crown; c) positive crown.
Figure 4 Schematic of strip prole based on sign of roll crown.
REGULATING CROWN AND FLATNESS DURING HOT ROLLING 463
taken as:
o =

in
h
in

out
h
out
(2)
where
in
and
out
denote the entry and exit strip crowns in a stand, and the h
terms denote the corresponding strip thicknesses.
A hot rolled strip tends to have the center buckle for a positive value of o
and the edge wave for its negative value. However, up to a certain limit, both the
positive and negative o values are tolerated in the hot rolled strips, as long as they
are within a so-called atness dead band [5], typically described as:
80(h
out
,W)
1.86
- o - 40(h
out
,W)
1.86
(3)
where W denotes the width of the hot rolled strip.
2.3. The Objective Functions
Two objective functions were constructed in this study. Minimization of the
rst one would ensure that there would be no abrupt jumps in the dimensions of
the slabs used in the schedule, and the minimization of the second one would imply
that the total crown in the rolled strip from all sources is kept to a minimum.
These two objectives are, however, conicting, and simultaneous absolute fulllment
of both the goals would be an impossibility. What one needs to work out in a
situation like this is a trade-off between the two objectives. Unlike a single-objective
scenario, the options here would be more than one, and the family of the best
possible alternatives, the so-called rank 1 solutions, gives rise to the Pareto front
[8]. Within the Pareto-front, each member is a possible solution to the problem, the
entire group is better than any other possible groups of solutions, and within the
group, each member is simply as good as the other, because none of them is better
than any other member in terms of both the objective functions, or even the same
in terms of one and better with respect to the second. In other words, the Pareto
solutions are non-dominating to each other.
To address this problem mathematically, one requires a criterion for
nondominance and needs to implement a procedure for ranking the candidate
solutions. The formulation that we have adopted in this study is elaborated in
Table 1. In a two-objective situation like the one adopted here, the non-dominance
between two possible solutions requires that if one of them is a better choice in terms
of the rst objective, it has to be inferior in terms of the other, and the ranking
procedure ensures that all rank 1 solutions are dominated by none and are mutually
nondominating. Locus of the rank 1 solutions in this case leads, to a strong Pareto
optimality, as further elaborated elsewhere [2].
2.3.1. The rst objective function. To ensure that jumps in hardness,
thickness, and width are kept to a minimum during any particular campaign, we
sought to minimize the function
3

]=1
W
]
M

i=2

(H
i,]
H
i1,]
)
2
M
(4)
464 NANDAN ET AL.
Table 1 Conditions for optimality assessment
Dominance For Minimizing Objective Functions: ]
i
(X)
condition i = 1, 2, . . . , I
Subject to Constraints: g
]
(X)
] = 1, 2, . . . , 1
where X = (X
k
: k = 1, 2, . . . , K) is a K-tuple vector
of variables,
dening an I-tuple vector of objectives:
D
i
= (]
i
: i = 1, 2, . . . , I)
the condition for dominance between any two
objective vectors is taken as:
(D
I
D
m
) (
i
)(]
iI
]
im
) (
m
)(]
iI
- E
im
)
Nondominance If neither D
I
nor D
m
dominate the other
condition objective vector, they are non-dominating to
each other.
Ranking condition If D
i
is dominated by N objective vectors,
then its rank is expressed as N +1
where H
i,]
denotes the ]th property, either hardness, thickness, or width, of weight
W
]
for the ith strip to be rolled. A number of constraints, specic to the hot
rolling practice at TATA Steel, were considered along with this objective function.
We made an assumption that the strip width remains the same at all stands, and
assigned equal weights to all the property jumps.
2.3.2. The second objective function. This objective function, as
indicated before, is to minimize crown from diverse sources. To achieve this, a
rigorous crown calculation was performed, and a minimum value was sought for
the o function dened in Eq. (2). Because the hot rolling facility at TATA steel has
six stands, the total crown is expressed as:
6

]=1
N

i=1

i]
(5)
Here
i]
, the total crown imparted to the ith strip after passing through the ]th
stand is expressed as a function of several variables, such that:

i]
= ](
O
,
T
,
W
, P
]
, E
]
); and
i]
K
i]
(6)
where
O
is the initial crown value,
T
and
W
denote crowns due to thermal
and wear contributions. The parameter P
]
denotes the roll force, whereas E
]
is
the bending force, and K
i]
is the acceptable level of crown tolerance for the
ith strip after it has passed through the ]th stand, assigned on the basis of the
operational practices at TATA steel. Having incorporated all the sources of crown,
here we sought to minimize the o function, subject to a number of constraints, once
again, based on the operational practices at TATA steel. The exact nature of these
constraints are, however, company-specic information and may not be released in
a public document.
The procedures for calculating various parameters associated with the
objective functions require particular attention. Further details are provided in the
subsequent section.
REGULATING CROWN AND FLATNESS DURING HOT ROLLING 465
2.4. Calculation of Thermal Crown
It can be assumed that the work rolls in each stand are subjected to a
constant heat ux over the bite angle and a uniform convective cooling in the
remaining portions. In order to calculate the thermal crown, one needs to know the
temperature prole in the roll, subject to these boundary conditions. In this study,
we have used an alternating direction implicit (ADI) nite difference scheme based
on a tri-diagonal matrix algorithm [9] to obtain a numerical solution of the pertinent
heat transfer equation [10, 11], expressed as:
cT
ct
= :V
2
T +q (7)
Figure 5 a) Side view of a hot rolling mill; b) front view showing the slab in the deformation zone
with appropriate boundary conditions.
466 NANDAN ET AL.
Table 2 Parameters used in boundary conditions
T
I
Work roll temperature in region I (where the slab is in contact with the roll)
T
II
Work roll temperature in region II (where the slab is not in contact with the roll)
T
C
Coolant temperature
T
o
Ambient temperature
q Rate of heat generation per unit volume
h
o
Heat transfer coefcient at ambient side
h
C
Heat transfer coefcient at the coolant side
W Strip width
I Roll barrel length
k Thermal conductivity
We have solved this equation in a cylindrical coordinate system, and
analogous to a previous study [10], the second derivative in the angular direction
(c
2
T,c0
2
) is neglected. The boundary conditions assigned to Eq. (7) [11] are shown
schematically in Fig. 5. The various parameters used in the boundary conditions are
listed in Table 2.
The source term q in Eq. (7) requires a particular attention. This term
is needed due to heat generation between the rolls and the strip, and major
contribution to it comes from deformation and friction [10]. The deformation heat
per unit volume, Q
P
, is expressed as:
Q

=

[
1
D

(8)
where the parameter

[
1
is a constant related to the fraction of plastic deformation
energy dissipated as heat, and D

is calculated as:
D

=
m
ln
h
1
h
2
(9)
where
m
is the rolling pressure, and h
1
and h
2
are the thicknesses of the strip before
and after rolling.
The frictional heat per unit area, on the other hand, is expressed as:
Q
r
=

[
2
D
r
(10)
where

[
2
is a constant and D
r
is calculated as:
D
r
= j
m
V
r
t
r
(11)
where j is the coefcient of friction and t
r
is the contact time between the roll and
the strip. Here the average value of relative velocity between the work roll and strip
is expressed as:
V
r
=
V
R
2
]
2
+l
2
] +l
(12)
REGULATING CROWN AND FLATNESS DURING HOT ROLLING 467
where ] and l denote the forward and backward slips respectively, and t
r
is the
contact time between the work roll and strip given as:
t
r
=

R(h
1
h
2
)
V
R
(13)
V
R
being the speed of the work roll.
Once the temperature prole is known, the thermal crown can be readily
evaluated using the coefcient of thermal expansion.
2.5. Crown Due to Roll Wear
The strip prole gets affected by the wear in both the work and the backup
rolls. Here we have estimated the contribution of crown due to wear for all the six
stands, by using a relationship developed during an earlier research [5]:
C
m
= :
n

i=1

P
i
W
i
I
i

L
i
D
i

(ol)(r
i
I
i
)o
i,z
(14)
where,
o
i,z
= 1 when 0 - z W
i
,2
= 0 when z > W
i
,2 (15)
The subscript i denotes the rolling pass number, whereas n is the total number of
rolling passes, r is the reduction, I is the roll contact length, W is the strip width,
and L is exit strip length. The work roll diameter is denoted as D. The parameters
o, l, and : are three empirical coefcients depending on the roll material, strip
temperature, roll bite lubrication, roll coolant, etc.
The roll separating force P is expressed as [12]:
P = ol

R(Ah) (16)
where o denotes the planar yield stress, and Ah is the thickness reduction in the
strip. The roll contact length I for a given reduction R is expressed as [12]:
I =

R(h
0
h
]
) (17)
At this point, the precise values of the parameters o, l and : are not known
to us. They may even follow some nonlinear relationships, which, in turn, are
also unknown. This problem needs to be sorted out in some future work through
rigorous experimentations, which was beyond the scope of the present work.
2.6. The Bending Model
Here we have applied the principles of the elementary beam theory for simple
bending [5, 13, 14] to compute the deection of the roll barrel under the applied
468 NANDAN ET AL.
Figure 6 Roll bending model.
load. The basic conguration that we have considered here is shown schematically
in Fig. 6.
For a roll-separating force P, the roll neck bearings generate an upward force
at a distance o from the roll neck junction, as shown in Fig. 6. The equation for
bending at a distance x toward the center of the roll is given as:
EI
D
J
2
,
Jx
2
=
Px
2

(x o)
2
2
[ (18)
where the subscript D refers to the roll diameter, E is the Youngs modulus, and the
moment of inertia I
D
is dened as
I
D
=

4

D
2

2
(19)
The parameter [ in Eq. (18) is the force distribution over the barrel in the region
of strip and is dened as
[ =
P
W
(20)
where W is the strip width
Upon integrating twice Eq. (18) yields:
2EI
D
=
Px
3
6
[
(x o)
4
12
+

[
3

L
2
o

PL
2
8

x
Po
3
6
+
PL
2
8
o
[o
3

L
2
o

3
(21)
where L is the roll barrel length
In addition, one needs to consider the bending due to shear, which could be
obtained as a solution of the following equation:
J,
Jx
=
:P
GA

x o
W

1
2

(22)
REGULATING CROWN AND FLATNESS DURING HOT ROLLING 469
where G is the modulus of rigidity, and A is the cross-sectional area of the work-roll,
and : equals to 4/3 for a circular section.
An integration of Eq. (22) provides:
,
s
=
:P
GA

(x o)
2
2W

1
2
(x o)

(23)
The sum of the deections obtained from Eqs. (21) and (23) constitutes the total
bending and is incorporated in the crown calculations done through Eq. (6).
2.7. Roll Shifting Prole
The actual CVC roll prole used in the hot strip mill of TATA steel is shown
in Fig. 7.
The pattern of roll shifting is a crucial parameter that signicantly affects the
contour of the rolled strip. Two different roll-shifting proles were considered in
this study: the actual roll-shifting process conducted at TATA Steel (Fig. 8) for
the schedule under consideration and an idealized triangular-wedge-shaped shifting
prole (Fig. 9). The TATA Steel shifting is predominately in the negative direction,
whereas the idealized prole ensures symmetric periodic shifting in both the positive
and negative directions. This issue will be further taken up later.
Figure 7 CVC prole of the work rolls used in the hot strip mill of TATA Steel.
470 NANDAN ET AL.
Figure 8 Shifting practice at the Hot Strip Mill of TATA Steel.
3. THE GENETIC ASPECTS
A candidate solution for the objective functions is essentially a sequence of
strips to be rolled, and the major task of the crossover and mutation operators
is to efciently alter that sequence. Here we have accomplished that with the
use of Position Based Crossover (PBX) and Position-Based Mutation (PBM)
operators [15].
The two operators and the two multiobjective optimization strategies that we
have used here are briey described below. Some basic genetic algorithms concepts
used in this discussion have been extensively discussed in the earlier publications
[3, 4] and are not repeated here.
Figure 9 Triangular wedge-shaped shifting pattern.
REGULATING CROWN AND FLATNESS DURING HOT ROLLING 471
3.1. PBX and PBM
In Position-Based Crossover, a mask that is a binary string, is randomly
generated. Corresponding to the 1s in the mask, alleles are swapped. The cells
corresponding to 0s in the mask are lled by the remaining alleles (i.e., alleles that
did not appear on swapping) in the same order in which they existed in the parent
string. This is further elaborated in Fig. 10.
Position-Based Mutation involves removal of an allele at location i from its
present position and its reinsertion at some location ]. This retains most ordering
information and could be effectively used in the present study.
3.2. The Essentials of DPGA
Two different populations are maintained in distance-based Pareto genetic
algorithm [6], xed sized main population containing the candidate solutions, and
Figure 10 Position-based crossover.
472 NANDAN ET AL.
another of variable size containing the elites among them. The elite population starts
as empty, and its occupation is initiated by arbitrarily passing the rst member of
the main population to it with an arbitrary positive tness [. The next step of the
algorithm involves calculation of normalized Euclidean distances between the elite
member(s) and each of the members of the main population in the objective function
space. At the very beginning because we have just one elite member, and N members
in the main population, a total of N distances need to be calculated. In general, o
i]
,
the distance between the ith member of the elite and the ]th member of the main
population is expressed as:
o
i]
=
N

k=1

i
k

]
k

i
k
2
(24)
where N is the total number of objective functions.
i
k
is the kth objective function
of the ith member of the elite, and
]
k
is the same for the ]th member of the main
population. The tness of the ]th member in the main population is now altered
on the basis of o

]
, the Euclidean distance between this member and its closest elite
neighbor in the functional hyperspace. If this particular member dominates any of
the elite members or remains nondominated to all, a copy of it is incorporated in the
elite population after removing all the dominated elites, and its tness in both the
copies is assigned as [ +o

]
. Alternately, a main population member dominated by
any member of the elite gets to stay in the main population with a tness of [ o

]
.
Once the process is completed for all the members of the main population,
the elite population forms for the current generation, and the tness of all the elite
members is upgraded to the maximum tness existing among them.
The main population is now subjected to genetic reorganization through the
usual route of reproduction, crossover, and mutation. The new progeny is now
made to interact with the existing elite members in the same way as its predecessors,
receiving new tness values and altering the makeup of the elite group in the
process. This is continued for many generations until the elite population does not
change further.
3.3. The Essentials of SPEA
Although elitist and maintains two populations, the strength Pareto
evolutionary algorithm is based on a somewhat different philosophy than DPGA.
Here, not only the main population size but also the maximum number of
individuals in the elite population is xed as well. Any additional candidates for
the elite population are removed through a specially designed clustering algorithm.
Unlike DPGA, the tness assignment to an elite member is directly related to
the total number of main population members that this particular elite member
dominates. This is done by assigning a strength value + to each elite member. If the
ith elite member dominates a total of m
i
members in the main population of size M,
then its strength is expressed as:
+
i
=
m
i
1 +M
(25)
REGULATING CROWN AND FLATNESS DURING HOT ROLLING 473
Fitness of an individual k in the main population (
k
) depends on I, the total
number of elite members that dominate it as well as their respective strengths and
is taken as:

k
= 1 +
I

i=1
+
i
(26)
At the onset of the process, the main population is randomly initiated, and
the best ranked individuals from it are copied to the elite which, as in the case of
DPGA, is empty to begin with. A classication procedure is invoked in case the
number of rank 1 individuals is more than the available slots. The strength values
are assigned to the elite members and the tness to the rest. The same individual
may be present in both the populations, and owing to the difference in habitat will
receive either a strength or tness, which are not expected to be identical. Both
the populations are now temporarily mixed, and the main population is recreated
through repeated binary tournament selections among the combined population
members. It should be noted at this point that during the selection process both
+ and are considered to be analogous, and a lower value of each is taken
as better. This will put both overly dominated and overly dominating individuals
at a disadvantage and keep the population diversity intact. Once again, the new
progeny of the main population is ranked and the rank 1 solutions are copied onto
the elite population. Any dominated member in the elite is now deleted, and the
clustering procedure is invoked, in case the population size of the elite exceeds its
prescribed size. This procedure is repeated until a prescribed termination criterion is
satised.
The classication algorithm that is used in SPEA relies on the Euclidean
distances between the candidate elites in the objective function space. If there are E
such individuals contesting for spots, the sorting begins by creating a total of E
clusters, placing one individual in each. The distances between each two clusters are
now evaluated, by computing the Euclidean distances between their inhabitants, and
the clusters with least distance between them are merged together, reducing the total
number of clusters by one. The inter cluster distances are now updated by using an
average distance for the cluster inhabited by more than one individuals. The two
closest clusters are now merged once again, and the process is continued until the
number of clusters become . The elite population now receives a total of new
members, one from each cluster. For the clusters with more than one occupant, a
representative individual is sent to the elite, the preferable one being the one having
the least average distance from the other members in the same cluster.
The efcacy of this algorithm requires a judicious choice of the elite
population size and is computationally more cumbersome than the distance-based
method. Limited elite size and accommodation of just one representative solution
from each cluster often result in losing some potentially promising candidates for
the elite population, thus shrinking its size from one generation to the other. The
results obtained with these algorithms are further analyzed below.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Among the two algorithms tried, SPEA seems to have worked better than
DPGAfor this problem. Some typical results are compared in Fig. 11. The roll-shifting
474 NANDAN ET AL.
Figure 11 Pareto fronts computed by using SPEA and DPGA for 500 generations. The objective
functions are denoted as f1 and f2.
pattern shown in Fig. 8 has been used for both the calculations. For a batch of 50
different strips actually rolled at TATA Steel, the Pareto front (Fig. 11) has been
computed by both the algorithms within 500 generations.
The nature of the Pareto front however, depends considerably on the nature of
roll shifting as illustrated in Fig. 12. From a closer observation of the results shown
in this gure, it seems that a symmetric triangular roll-shifting pattern (Fig. 9) would
work better for this particular campaign than what has been actually followed,
Figure 12 Pareto front calculated by using DPGA for different roll shifting patterns. The objective
functions are denotes as f1 and f2.
REGULATING CROWN AND FLATNESS DURING HOT ROLLING 475
because basically, both the objective functions could be optimized better along the
entire Pareto front in the former case. The current roll-shifting pattern at the hot
strip mill at TATA Steel is determined by an on-line automation program, and as
it appears from Fig. 8, the practiced pattern is not very systematic and also heavily
biased toward the negative shifting. However, a combination of both positive and
a negative type of shifting could be more favorably used for a better dimensional
accuracy corresponding to any acceptable schedule of rolling. The results presented
in Fig. 12 tend to corroborate it further.
As stated already, in this investigation we have waived the strict restriction
of a cofn formation. Width of any slab has been allowed to be either larger or
smaller than its predecessor, and what we have sought is a sequence that would
correspond to a minimum of the sum total of all the width jumps between the
neighboring slabs. However, a typical Pareto solution like the one presented in
Fig. 12 would simply represent a compromise between the two objectives. Therefore,
in the present scenario, the more orderly the rolling sequence becomes the lesser
becomes the frequency of roll replacement and its associated cost, but it comes at the
expense of a more severity of crown in the rolled sheets, or in other words, poorer
surface atness.
The sequence of rolling varies from one end of the Pareto front to the
other. This is elaborated in Figs. 1315. Because the width jump between any two
consecutive slabs was allowed to be either positive or negative, all the proles
deviated substantially from a cofn structure. Among these three cases, the worst
crown is expected for the schedule shown in Fig. 13 and the best for the same
corresponds to Fig. 15. However, in terms of the overall standard deviation of
the property jump and the consequent frequency of expensive roll change, their
Figure 13 Rolling schedule corresponding to point A in Fig. 11. The width is measured from the
centerline.
476 NANDAN ET AL.
Figure 14 Rolling schedule corresponding to point B in Fig. 11. The width is measured from the
centerline.
desirability would just be the reverse. A middle path in terms of both the objectives
is shown in Fig. 14.
It should be mandatory for any selected schedule to lead the rolled strips to
an acceptable atness dead band. The range of atness dead band calculated from
Figure 15 Rolling schedule corresponding to point C in Fig. 11. The width is measured from the
centerline.
REGULATING CROWN AND FLATNESS DURING HOT ROLLING 477
Figure 16 Flatness dead band for a typical strip corresponding to point C in Fig. 11.
Eq. (3) is often idealistic and may not be practicable in a real scenario. A typical
situation for the present campaign is shown in Fig. 16 where, to accommodate
the per unit crown change for all the six stands, the exponent in Eq. (3) has been
changed from 1.86 to 1.53.
The optimization strategy that we have developed during this study is
thus able to assess the ongoing hot rolling practice in an integrated steel plant
and also can suggest alternates. However, these calculations are highly compute
intensive, and on-line implementation of our model may not be feasible at this
moment. There are a number of parameters in this model that require empirical
adjustments, and for some, only a limited amount of experimental data is available.
One can overcome such shortcomings only through continued plant trials and
associated updating of the model parameters, which will constitute a second phase
of our project.
5. CONCLUSION
Surface atness of the hot rolled steels is a crucial property requirement
for any steel plant, and this study provides a quantitative picture of its direct
connectivity with the operational parameters like rolling schedule and the extent
and nature of roll shifting. For a steel plant like TATA Steel, which runs a
complex automation routine in their hot rolling mills, the liberty available to the
human operators is very much limited. A modeler for such processes is, therefore,
highly restricted because of the lack of exibility in this automated environment.
The model that we have presented here was developed by being fully aware of
this bottleneck, and the Pareto optimal analysis that has been resorted to in this
work, still leaves enough exibility for the operators and prescribes some parameter
changes that are possible to implement under the industrial condition.
478 NANDAN ET AL.
Very few studies have been conducted to date where genetic algorithms [14, 16]
have been used for analyzing the rolling processes. This article perhaps is one of the
rst public domain documents on a specic application of an evolutionary multi-
objective technique on hot rolling. The evolutionary multiobjective optimization
is, however, a procedure that has already created a very substantial impact in the
engineering research [1, 2]. The rolling mills worldwide would simply benet more
by adopting this strategy further.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Financial and logistic support from TATA Steel is thankfully acknowledged.
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