The roll forming process plays a critical role in producing various sections used in industries. Also, the quality of these products is strongly affected by the thickness of the strip, the distance between stands, the section web, the flower pattern, and the plastic anisotropy. Therefore, the influences of practical factors on the bowing defect of the symmetrical U-section are experimentally and mathematically characterized in the present research. The investigated material is DC03 (1.0347) steel. Different prediction models such as linear and non-linear model based on the general full-factorial design of experiment are used to predict the effect of following factors on the bowing defect. Accuracy of the analytical model was verified by comparing the output results with the practical data. Results show that the strip thickness of investigated material, the flower pattern, and the section web have the most significant effect on the bowing defect. Also, the anisotropic properties of the investigated material and the inter distance have the minor impact on the bowing defect, but the effect of material with considering the anisotropic properties on increasing the accuracy of process simulation results is very impressive and increases the accuracy of simulation results from 84% to 91%. Finally, the predicted bowing defect using the modified two-factor model was in 91% agreement with the experimental results. Manuscript profile