Formulation of a new generalized kinematically admissible velocity field with a variable axial component for the forward extrusion of shaped sections

Abstract

For most three-dimensional analytical solutions proposed for the extrusion of shaped sections, the axial component of the velocity vector has been assumed to be constant at each cross section throughout the deforming zone. This shortcoming means that these velocity fields are not in accordance with the reality of the extrusion problem, and hence, the upper bounds based on such fields give high values for the extrusion pressure. To overcome this, a new formulation has been presented in this paper for which a kinematically admissible velocity field has been developed using a variable axial velocity component. For this purpose, curved surfaces of velocity discontinuities at the entry and exit have been proposed and incorporated into the formulation for the extrusion of shaped sections from circular billets. As an example, a square profiled section has been chosen for the extrusion problem. The upper bound on extrusion pressure was computed using the new formulation. It was shown that the initial velocity discontinuity surface at the entry to the deforming region was flat, and as one travels into the deforming region towards the exit section, the velocity discontinuity surface gradually became convex, having the highest convexity at the exit section. This was contrary to what has been suggested in the literature so far. The measure of convexity depends on the extrusion parameters which have been investigated in this work. Experiments were also carried out to verify the theoretical results, and good agreements were observed between the two. Comparison of the present results with similar previous works showed good improvements as well.