Modelling of creep-fatigue in containers during aluminium and copper extrusion

During hot extrusion of aluminium alloys, extrusion dies experience cyclic temperature changes as well as multiaxial loadings. To improve the service life of the dies, cleaner and high hot strength materials are designed as well as an optimised process control is performed. For the improvement of the process guiding and a comparison of lifetime behaviour of different hot work tool steels, modelling and simulation are appropriate means. The extrusion process has been simulated using the FE-program Deform to find the stress and temperature history at the inner diameter of the liner, i.e. the boundary conditions for the subsequent cyclic simulation of the container during service. Inelastic constitutive equations have been implemented into Abaqus Standard to describe strain hardening and time recovery effects. They include the Norton viscoplastic flow rule, thermo-mechanical isotropic hardening and two non-linear kinematic hardening laws. A damage-rate model predicts failure and thus the lifetime of the container. The procedure for the identification of material parameters for both the constitutive and the damage model is described in detail for the hot work tool steel Böhler W400 VMR (EN 1.2343).