An extrusion simulation of an aluminum profile by porthole die

Abstract

The aluminum alloys are ideal material because of their corrosion resistance, recycling ability, high specific strength and especially low density for lightweight structures of transportation, aerospace, automotive industries. Hot extrusion process is the most used metal forming method for obtaining a variety of aluminum alloy profiles. The demand for large cross section, multi cavity and thin wall profiles has been increasing with the development of the industry and extrusion method is key solution for producing complex profiles with high productivity. These profiles are generally extruded by porthole dies. The extrusion process by porthole die is complicated and die design has great importance for the quality of the extruded product. Design of the porthole die should give optimum material flow and homogenous temperature distribution both for obtaining desired profile and eliminating die scrap. The measuring the temperature and material flow is not possible for closed die formation and it is so important to estimate both material flow, temperature change in the die. For this aim, an extrusion simulation of a porthole die for standard aluminum profile was investigated in this study with the support of HyperXtrude Inspire Extrude Metal 2019 software, which is specialized for FEM calculations of extrusion process. Each step of extrusion process was simulated. Aluminum AA6063 material was used for simulations, the process temperature was 4500 °C and punch velocity was selected as 5 mm/sec. Finally, the FEM results were obtained and the temperature distribution, pressure distribution, billet interface and relative die exit speed results were analyzed.

The Effect of Nitrogen Gas Cooling Which Is Used in Aluminium Extrusion Mold on Production Efficiency

“…The product quality directly is directly affected by many parameters such as mold design parameters, process operating conditions of the used alloys which has a different chemical composition. The material flow controlling of thin walled high strength profiles is one of the most challenges point in the extrusion process [9]. The optimal material flow conditions are required to heat balance of billet.…”