An analytical leveling model of curvature and residual stress simulation for H-beams

•The leveling model and computational procedure for H-beams was built and given.•The analytical result is verified by experimental data of the bending process.•The curvature distribution can reflect the elastic–plastic state.•The distribution of bending and residual stresses present the shape of polylines.•This model has a potential application for setting the roller gap.

Leveling is a process used to minimize the bending defects in the steel industry. It plays an important role in delivering the desired material properties and product standards. This paper presents an analytical model for predicting the leveling process for H-beams with strong and weak axis bending defects. In this paper, an analytical model is first developed with the computational procedure of describing the continuous bending and reversed bending process, as well as the unloading process. Then, the developed analytical model and computational procedure are evaluated by a comparative study of results obtained from experimental data. Finally, the leveling process including curvature, trajectory, bending and residual stress distributions are evaluated for typical H-beam made of construction steel using the developed method. It is found that defective H-beam with different initial curvature tends to be flatted after the leveling process and the developed analytical model is much superior than finite element based modeling approach in terms of computational efficiency with the same level of accuracy.