Abstract: The edge cracks in stainless steels during variable thickness rolling(VTR) process greatly affect the product quality. Based on the VTR and plastic deformation theory， the hot-deformation constitutive equation of 2205 duplex stainless steel and mechanical model of different rolling regions to solve the edge crack problem are built， combining with experimental data from Gleeble-3800 thermal simulation. In the cross VTR process， different reduction rates in the edge and middle regions of the strip can be controlled. Using DEFORM software to simulate the rolling process， the edge damages from the cross VTR and ordinary rolling are compared and the metal flows in different thickness are analyzed. The results show that the factor of edge damage in the cross VRT process is reduced by 22% than that in ordinary one， and changing the curve of edge variable thickness can effectively solve the edge damage problem， so as to improve the product quantity and quality of stainless steel plate and strip.

Key words: 2205 duplex stainless steel; cross variable thickness rolling; variable thickness curve; edge damage; the metal flow