Investigation of dynamic effects during cold upset-forging of sintered aluminium truncated conical preforms

The present paper deals with the upper bound analysis, experimental investigation and computer simulation of upset-forging of sintered aluminium truncated conical preforms, which considers heterogeneous deformation due to barreling of preform slant sides, composite die–workpiece interfacial friction conditions, preform densification along with compression and inertia effects. A generalized theoretical expression for average forging load and preform bulged profile based on the exponential velocity field and strain rate has been established. The upset-forging experiments were conducted using the sintered preforms prepared by compacting aluminium metal powder in the closed dies and various deformation characteristics were measured. Finally, the computer simulation of the upset-forging of the sintered aluminium truncated conical preforms was performed using DEFORM software and the deformation behavior velocity, effective strain and effective stress distribution were critically studied. The effect of die speed, i.e. dynamic effects on average die load has been investigated using energy and load factors. The DOE (Design of Experiment) and RSM (Response Surface Methodology) techniques were also used to investigate and determine interrelationships between important upset-forging characteristics and the results were presented graphically. During the present investigations, it was found that inertia energy dissipation and energy factor increases, where as die load and load factor decreases exponentially with die speed. It is expected that the present work will be useful for effective assessment of various deformation characteristics during processing of sintered materials, especially at high-speed.