THE SIMULATED COOLING OF THE HOT-ROLLED STRUCTURAL-STEEL SECTIONS

Temperature models based on the finite difference, ADI and Runge-Kutta methods have been written in order to establish the most efficient al gorithm when simulating the cooling of newly hot-rolled steel sections under a variety of cooling conditions. For air-cooling, the most effi cient results were obtained using extended-stability Runge-Kutta metho ds, together with adaptive step size control procedures. CPU time-savi ngs of around 85% were achieved when an existing finite difference bas ed section air-cooling model was modified to run using a specially dev eloped, highly stable, second-order Runge-Kutta formula with the metho d of lines. The ADI approach gave the most efficient results for water spray cooling, producing accurate results in approximately half the C PU time required by the finite difference method.