A Wire Rod Rolling Mill Digital Twin for the Simulation of the Rolls Replacement Process

Abstract

Smart Manufacturing is a goal to be achieved, and the most advanced manufacturing approaches are being used to pursue this objective. Within this context, industry development aims to attain an intelligent manufacturing using, for example, virtual models that simulate production lines. This paper presents the architecture of a Digital Twin for emulating the rolls replacement process within a wire rod rolling mill. The model is developed in Python, using a backtracking algorithm to select the suitable set of rolls as a first basic approach for the validation of the system. It may be used in the future to improve the production system automating the decision for the replacement of rolls as alternative to the current human-decision process.