A Novel 1.5D FEM of Temperature Field Model for an Online Application on Plate Uniform Cooling Control

In wide steel plate cooling process, the temperature distribution along width direction especially near plate edges is very important for properties and flatness of products. Therefore, the temperature distribution in the thickness and width direction should be considered by the online control model. High accuracy and quick response of control are the keys of industrial application. Due to the big cross-section of wide plate, the number of elements by traditional 2D mesh method is very large. So, it cannot have both computing speed and accuracy. To solve this problem, a novel 1.5D mesh method, which combines 1D and 2D ways, was studied in this paper. The feasibility of the proposed method was testified by the energy balance equation and experiments. Through comparison analysis, 1.5D model possesses faster speed and higher precision. In practical application, the model has a good performance on water crown and edge mask control of plate cooling to improve the temperature uniformity in the entire width direction.