Model-based control of dynamic frictional contact problems using the example of hot rolling

We consider hot forming processes, in which a metal solid body is deformed by several rolls in order to obtain a desired final shape. To minimize cutting scrap and to ensure that this shape satisfies the required tolerances as precisely as possible, we formulate an optimal control problem where we use the trajectories of the rolls as control functions. The deformation of the solid body is described through the basic equations of nonlinear continuum mechanics, which are here coupled with an elasto-viscoplastic material model based on a multiplicative split of the deformation gradient. We assume that the deformations of the rolls can be neglected, thus we add unilateral frictional contact boundary conditions, resulting in an evolutionary quasi-variational inclusion. The associated control-to-observation map is non-differentiable due to changes of state between elastic and plastic material behavior, contact and separation and stick and slip motion, yet we still want to apply gradient-based methods to solve the optimal control problem and therefore have to make sure that derivatives of cost functional and constraints exist. To resolve this issue, we first regularize all non-differentiabilities and subsequently apply the direct differentiation method to obtain sensitivity information. Finally, we formulate a suitable algorithm and discuss numerical results for a real-world example to illustrate its capability.