Design of the tube roll forming process through an heuristic algorithm

In the paper the design of an industrial tube roll forming process is developed utilizing an heuristic algorithm, namely the simulated annealing (SA). In particular both the number and the shape of the deforming rolls are determined in order to define the forming sequence. The effectiveness of the results supplied by the SA algorithm is verified both by means of some experiments tests carried out on an industrial tube roll forming equipment and through a set of numerical simulations of the process.