FEM analysis for the extrusion process of tubes using porthole dies

Abstract

This paper deals with FEM simulation of porthole-die extrusion process in order to gain insight in design and control process parameters. In this study, dies with two, four and six porthole with different length of the bridge were used in order to observe the material split flow and the impact on bridge deformation. For these purposes, PAK software was used for elastoplastic analysis of bridge loading and deflection. In order to obtain the boundary conditions for this analysis, the numerical simulation of the hot aluminum extrusion process was also performed, using FEM software CAMPform 2D. It is shown that this approach can be a very efficient way to separate numerical studies about the aluminum flow from calculations of die deformation. Moreover, it has made it possible that the complex three-dimensional flow through the extrusion die can be studied by means of two-dimensional plane strain calculation, in representative sections. Through investigating elasto-plastic deformation of porthole-die, it is also possible to estimate the porthole-die failure behaviour.