Parametric Study of a New Extrusion Process Using Finite Element Simulation

Alternate extrusion (AE) process is a newly introduced extrusion process which uses two split punches to apply pressure in the extrusion operation. Since there is more than one punch for extrusion pressure, during the process extra shear strains apply to the material. Due to the large shear strains induced to the billet, this operation is comparable to severe plastic deformation processes such as ECAP. The AE process creates fine-grained microstructure and also needs less extrusion force compared to the conventional extrusion process. In this paper, the proposed process was simulated using Deform 3D software and the effect of processing parameters on the Average effective strain (ES) stored in the billet was investigated. These parameters were upsetting ratio, extrusion ratio and the number of punches. Two of these parameters (the upsetting ratio and the number of punches) were never considered in any research before. It has been shown that the larger extrusion ratio and the increased number of punches could enhance the amount of ES in the material while the best value for the upsetting ratio was obtained to be 0.5. Furthermore, FE simulations illustrated that for large extrusion ratios two punches could be enough for applying extrusion pressure.

کلیدواژه ها:

Alternate extrusion (AE) ، Effective strain (ES) ، Extrusion ratio ، Punch ، Upsetting ratio