Effects of Tool Coatings on Energy Consumption in Micro-Extrusion of Aluminum Alloy 6063

Sedthawatt Sucharitpwatskul,Numpon Mahayotsanun,Kuniaki Dohda,Sujin Bureerat

doi:10.3390/coatings10040381

Sedthawatt Sucharitpwatskul, Numpon Mahayotsanun + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/coatings10040381

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Journal: Coatings	Publication Date: Apr 13, 2020
Citations: 1	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Khon Kaen University, Northwestern University

Abstract

The tool wear rate and energy consumption were typically unknown in micro-extrusion, which made it difficult to optimize the tool design for both the final part quality and production cost. This study investigated the effects of tool coatings on energy consumption in the micro-extrusion of aluminum alloy 6063. Three main factors were considered in this study: (1) tool coating types, (2) bearing length, and (3) extrusion ratio. The micro-extrusion finite element simulation model was developed and validated with the micro-extrusion experiment. The results showed that increasing bearing lengths led to the increase in tool wear rate and energy consumption for all the coating types. The decreasing coefficient of friction values of the tool-billet interface led to a decrease in energy consumption. High hardness values of the tool surface and low bearing lengths helped increase tool life. Low values of coefficient of friction and bearing lengths helped decrease energy consumption.

Highlights

Global demands in aluminum consumption have been rising, in the areas that need lightweight [1]
Forward-Backward, Vertical, Slow-Speed Micro-Extrusion, we investigated the effects of tool geometry previous work on applying different coatings to the micro forward-backward extrusion tools showed and provided coating types
The tool wear rate of all the coatings increased with bearing length and extrusion ratio

Summary

Introduction

Global demands in aluminum consumption have been rising, in the areas that need lightweight [1]. Solutions, and processes must be developed in order to meet such high demands. Aluminum extrusion is one of the vital metal forming processes that provide net-shape and mass-production benefits [2]. Micro-biomedical parts ranging from rod, wire, ribbon, and tube drawing, to sheet and foil manufacture, and highly precise screw machining are commercially available [4]. One of the possible technologies to produce these metallic parts is micro forming [5]. The micro-extrusion process can be utilized to produce high precision miniaturized parts to add higher value to aluminum extrusion products [5,6,7]. Increased strengths of micro-parts can be achieved by using micro-extrusion [8,9,10,11,12,13,14]

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