Experimental Investigations of Material Behaviour in Forward Micro Extrusion

Abstract

Micro manufacturing has received good attention globally in terms of its manufacturing methods and processes. One of the most popular micro manufacturing processes is micro forming. Although there were efforts made to realize micro extrusion for industrial application, the technology itself was seen as being insufficiently mature and unlike conventional methods, there is no in-depth knowledge. It has become essential to develop a proper understanding which in turn could be used to develop dedicated processes for the manufacturing of metallic micro components. In this work, an attempt has been made to realize this special application of metal forming. A novel experimental setup consisting of forward extrusion assembly and a loading set-up has been developed to obtain the force-displacement response. The effects of minaturization on micro components and the material behavior during forward extrusion are investigated. As per industrial requirement and application of micro part in micro manufacturing process, grain size is an important factor. In this context the effect of grain size is also studied in this work. The realization of such a productive forward extrusion assembly poses significant advantages when compared to the conventional manufacturing technologies in the production of micro parts.