Influence of extrusion die geometry in the manufacturing of an axisymmetric aluminium part with different wall thickness

In this paper, the effect of extrusion die profile on the dimensional tolerance of a cross section of a part in a forward extrusion process was studied. In these experimental and numerical investigations, some parameters such as extrusion speed, metal flow, extrusion temperature and extrusion force were considered as process variables. The specimen was aluminium alloy 2014 with a variable wall thickness. The variable wall thickness causes the metal flow rate to be changed along the die orifice. As a result, the die which is used to produce this part must be suitable to control the flow rate of metal. In this study, two different dies were used to produce this part. In first die, to control the metal flow, variable bearing length method is used. In the second die, in addition to the bearing length method, a feeder is used in the narrow channels. From the experimental and numerical results, it was found that the first die is not good enough for manufacturing of this part. Because, the first die was not able to control uniform metal flow rate through the die orifice during the extrusion process. This drawback causes the die cavity to remain empty at the sharp corners which results a low quality and low dimensional accuracy in the product, especially in narrow channels. The numerical analysis results have shown that, the second die performance was much better than the first one. It was able to control uniform metal flow rate which causes high quality products.