Investigation of die designs on welding quality and billet material utilisation for multi-container extrusion of wide stiffened aluminium panels

Abstract

Wide stiffened aluminium panels are extensively used in aerospace, marine, and civil industries due to their light-weight structure and high stiffness. In this paper, a wide stiffened aluminium panel was manufactured using the principle of the multi-container extrusion, and a comparative study was conducted using two different die designs at the same extrusion condition, in which metal flow behaviour, extrusion force, welding quality, and billet material utilisation have been investigated numerically. Additionally, the effect of extrusion speed on the extrusion process was evaluated with the modified design. It was shown that, compared with the initial design, better metal flow behaviour can be obtained in the modified design. Multi-container extrusion greatly reduces the extrusion force, and the modified design results in a more uniform extrusion force for each extrusion container. The total extrusion force for the modified design is slightly higher compared with the initial die design, due to the increased friction in the upper die channels and the second-step welding chamber. Besides, the modified design of the multi-container extrusion can obtain better welding quality evaluated by different welding criteria, and the extrusion speed has a minor effect on the welding quality. The most notable feature is that the modified design greatly improves the material utilisation, which could save 39.5% material compared to the initial design.

Multi-Objective Optimization of a Multi-Cavity, Significant Wall Thickness Difference Extrusion Profile Mold Design for New Energy Vehicles

“…The total score of the three objectives was 1. The final score of each target was calculated using Formula (12), and the weight of the SDV and pressure standard deviation were determined. The weight of thick wall pressure was 0.3, 0.3, and 0.4, respectively.…”

“…In this paper, the above design difficulties are characterized by three indicators: speed standard deviation (SDV), pressure standard deviation (SDP), and thick wall hydrostatic pressure (TWHP). The expressions of SDV and SDP are shown in Equations ( 3) and ( 4), where V i is the velocity of node i along the extrusion direction on the cross-section and V is the average velocity of all nodes in the profile section, where n is the number of nodes [1,2,11,12]; similarly, P i is the hydrostatic pressure at node i on the cross-section and P is the average static water pressure of all nodes in the cross-section of the profile, where n is the number of nodes, which can be directly read by QFROM extrusion. The TWHP is the average value of six points read from the QFORM within the geometric center of the area in Figure 2.…”

“…However, currently, most researchers explore indicators related to the quality of profile forming, usually using the standard deviation of cross-sectional flow velocity (SDV) as the main evaluation indicator, and based on this indicator, carry out corresponding die design optimization work [4][5][6][7][8]11,12]. The smaller the SDV value, the more uniform the distribution of the discharge velocity at various positions on the profile section, which is crucial for ensuring the dimensional accuracy and surface quality of the profile.…”

Advancements in Metal Additive Manufacturing: A Comprehensive Review of Material Extrusion with Highly Filled Polymers

“…Among the widely adopted techniques in the global landscape of additive manufacturing (AM), material extrusion (MEX), also termed fused filament fabrication, stands out, particularly for applications involving thermoplastic composites and polymers due to the advantages of low initial investment, short processing time, minimal material wastage, user-friendly operation, precise control of processing parameters, the capacity for simultaneous use of multiple materials (multi-material 3D printing), and seamless integration with diverse computer-aided design (CAD) software [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Additionally, MEX offers the advantage of directly fabricating finished products, eliminating the need for molds, dies, or tooling, which are notable constraints in conventional manufacturing processes [9][10][11][12].…”

Selection of Design Scheme for an Ultrahigh-Pressure Hydrostatic Extrusion Cylinder

“…Sollund Havar et al [16] derived the analytical solutions for calculating the displacement and stress of two independent multilayer elastic cylinders under pressure and thermal loads for efficient analysis of heated and pressurized multi-layer cylinders. Zhe Zhang et al [17] used two different die designs under the same extrusion conditions to conduct numerical studies on metal flow characteristics, extrusion pressure, welding quality and billet utilization. Zhe Zhang et al [18] thought that extrusion is a very promising technology in the production of wide aluminum stiffened panels, an focus on the analysis of ways to widen the stiffened plates in the extrusion process, such as stretch extrusion and late flattening after extrusion.…”