As the traditional forging process has many problems such as low efficiency, high consumption of material and energy, large cylindrical shell rolling is introduced. Large cylindrical shell rolling is a typical rotary forming technology, and the upper and lower rolls have different radii and speeds. To quickly predict the three-dimensional stresses and eliminate fishtail defect, an improved strip layer method is developed, in which the asymmetry of the upper and lower rolls, non-uniform deformation and stress, as well as the asymmetrical spread on the end surface are considered. The deformation zone is divided into a certain number of layers and strips along the thickness and width, respectively. The transverse displacement model is constructed by polynomial function, in order to increase the computation speed greatly. From the metal plastic mechanics principle, the three-dimensional stress models are established. The genetic algorithm is used for optimization calculation in an industrial experiment example. The results show that the rolling pressure, the normal stresses, the upper and lower friction stress distributions are not similar with those of a general plate rolling. There are two relative maximum values in rolling pressure distribution. The upper and lower longitudinal friction stresses change direction nearby the upper and lower neutral points, respectively. The fishtail profile of spread on the end surface is predicted satisfactorily. The reduction could be helpful to eliminate fishtail defect. The large cylindrical shell rolling example illustrates the calculation results acquired rapidly are good agreements with the finite element simulation and experimental values of previous study. A highly effective and reliable three-dimensional simulation method is proposed for large cylindrical shell rolling and other asymmetrical rolling.
