1. What is CARD?

　　 The Computer Aided Roll pass Design (CARD) is one of the most advanced methods for rollpass design. It enables the designer to focus on making critical decisions by relieving them of tiresome, routine computing work. Since 1988 when the first version of our CARD system for rod and bar mills was developed, the CARD has been updated and improved from a specialized software to a universal one which can be applied to any rod and bar mills through any rolling process including multiple splitting slitting rolling process. After many years' application in practice, our CARD system has become a mature, reliable, and user-friendly software tool. The CARD system has been used by dozens of factories and research institutes. Prominent results have been achieved in production.

2. What can CARD do?

　　The current CARD system can be used to design 28 sequences of rollpasses for rod and bar mills including continuous mills, semi-continuous mills, open-train mills, Belgian wire mills and high-speed rod mills. Rolling force, temperatures and various technological parameters can be calculated as well. Iterative and optimal methods are used to guarantee the optimal results. This part forms the basic package of the CARD system.

　　A valuable function of designing rollpasses for multiple splitting rolling processes has been incorporated into the current CARD system. The final rolling sequences for different multiple
splitting colling process as are listed below.

　　Ribbed bars two-slitting:

　　1) five-pass final rolling sequence (Gothic square pass, Leader slitting pass, slitting pass, oval pass, and Ribbed steel bar pass);

　　2) seven-pass final rolling sequence (Square or round pass, Flat pass, Vertical pass, Leader slitting pass, Slitting pass, Oval pass, and Ribbed steel bar pass).

　　Ribbed bars three-slitting:

　　As 2) in Two-slitting

　　Ribbed bars four-slitting:

　　nine-pass final rolling sequence (equiaxed pass, preleader 2-diamond pass, leader 2-diamond pass, 2-diamond slitting pass, Gothic square pass, leader slitting pass, 2-oval slitting pass, oval pass, and Ribbed steel bar pass).

　　Data processing scope:

　　All kinds of rod and bar mills with the final speed: 3-120m/s;

　　Billet type: 60*60 – 200*200 mm² round and square box billet;

　　Product specification: 5.5-60 mm round steel, ribbed steel, or square steel.

3. How to use CARD?

　　a) Automatic/interactive design

　　The CARD system contains high precision mathematical model of deformation laws, which enables the less skilled designers to work with the software by pressing buttons and making some simple choices. For experts the software also provides possibilities to do interactive designs where the advanced users are able to change some critical parameters chosen by the computer.

　　b)  Analogue calculation

　　The CARD system can also be used to make analogue calculations for a given sequence of rollpasses. Rolling force, temperature and dimensions of a billet can be outputted after each pass. This feature can be use to do computer experiments to assess the given sequence of rollpasses under a production condition.

　　c)  Graphing

　　The integrated graphing software can be used to visualize and edit each individual roll-pass as well as layout of roll passes on a roller. No special plotting devices are required because the output is adapted to any common printer.

4. Computer system requirement

　　The program requires a desktop or portable computer running any Microsoft Windows series of operating systems.

5.  How to buy?

　　There are two packages of the CARD system available:

　　a) Basic package + graphing

　　b) Basic package + multiple slitting + graphing