An improved upper bound method for three-dimensional flow analysis in extrusion dies

Since the beginning of extrusion process operations, investigative research on die design has been conducted. Extrusion die design is still considered to be an art and a science. Extrusion die is the heart of the extrusion process. Designing and applying the die has several advantages.; For improving the quality of the products, the traditional flat-faced dies (which are typically used in the process nowadays) were replaced by the converging dies in many of the manufacturing facilities. The main advantage of the converging die is to provide a gradually controlled change of the cross section area and shape of the billet.; Many trials have been carried out to analyze the flow of the material inside the extrusion die. Most of those attempts were in the two-dimensional cases, while for three-dimensional problems, except for few cases, not much consideration has been given. Most of the three-dimensional problems have been analyzed using the Finite Element Method, which requires high level of skills and the simulation can take days or weeks to run.; The main goal for the research work is to support and assist the design and the manufacturing of the converging dies for three-dimensional cases. The research work will mainly discuss the analysis of the extrusion force by a newly modified upper bound method for flow analysis in 3-dimensional shaped extrusion dies. The results were validated against the finite element method using the same die configuration geometries. The Upper-Bound Method is accurate and requires less skills to set up the problem and is fast (runs in minutes) compared to the more widely used Finite Element Method.; The output data sets were constructed using the newly developed improved upper bound techniques for flow analysis in streamline extrusion dies. Design of Experiment (DOE) was used to identify the significance of each input parameter and its contribution to the model/analysis. A data set for neural network was generated using the significant parameters to generate the weights, which can be used for real-time process control. These developments are part of a virtual manufacturing environment for material processing (extrusion, rolling, forging, and machining—http://webme.ent.ohiou.edu/vm).