NONLINEAR GEOMETRICALLY ADAPTIVE FINITE ELEMENT MODEL OF THE COILBOX

A mathematical model, as well as the corresponding numerical solution, is presented for the evolution of temperature in a coiling and uncoiling bar in hot mills in the form of a parabolic partial differential equation for a shape-changing domain. The space discretization is achieved via a computationally efficient geometrically adaptive finite element scheme that accommodates the change in shape of the domain, using a computationally novel treatment of the resulting thermal contact problem due to coiling. Time is discretized according to a Crank-Nicolson scheme. Finally, some numerical results are presented.