A Novel Modified SLAB Method Approach for Efficient Energy Assessment in Ring Rolling Showing Fishtail Effect

Ring rolling (RR) is a widely used process for producing seamless rings, but its complex thermo-mechanical behavior often requires costly experiments or FEM simulations. This study presents a novel analytical method for predicting torque and energy in RR that explicitly accounts for the fishtail effect, a lateral deformation of the ring cross-section. The approach combines a slab-based mechanistic model with a regression linking fishtail deformation to the kinematic ratio between mandrel feed and ring rotation. Validation was performed via FEM simulations on an industrial AISI1045 steel case, covering thirty conditions with varying feed rates and rotational speeds. Results show that conventional models ignoring fishtail can overestimate errors by over 60% for torque and 50%for energy, whereas the proposed method reduces errors below 15% in most cases. These findings highlight the importance of including fishtail effects, offering a fast, reliable, and efficient tool for early-stage RR process design and optimization.