STUDY OF ISOTHERMAL EXTRUSION OF ALUMINUM USING FINITE ELEMENT SIMULATIONS

The focus in this work is isothermal extrusion of aluminum. Transient finite element simulations of the extrusion process have been performed over 20 press cycles using the 3D finite element software Altair HyperXtrude 9.0 and the 2D finite element software ALMA2 pi. The process parameters considered are front billet temperature, initial billet temperature gradient (taper), ram speed and container cooling rate. The press cycle has been divided into three phases: start, middle and the end of the ram stroke. The best combinations of process parameters for isothermal extrusion has been found and represented as so called isothermal maps for each phase of the press cycle.