Abstract: A 3D viscoelastic-plastic thermal-mechanical coupled finite element model was built on the basis of the secondary development of the commercial software MSC.Marc. Numerical simulations were performed to study slab broadening in the secondary cooling zone. The effects of slab width and thickness on slab broadening were considered. The obtained results reveal that the width broadening is noticeable, and the ratio of ultimate broadening slightly increases with the increase of slab width. This agrees well with the measured data in practice. There is no obvious increase in ultimate broadening when the thickness of slabs increases.