Numerical Simulation Of Cold Extrusion And Mould Design For Electrode Terminal

Cold extrusion has been widely used in manufacturing metal parts due to itsadvantages such as saving energy and material, high productivity, smooth surface finishand improvement in mechanical properties. Electrode terminal, a hollow part with severalteeth and embossments, was the key component in lead-acid battery and difficult todeform. Analysis and discussion of the paper focused on the forming problem of electrodeterminal in order to search for an optimum cold process scheme.The development of cold extrusion at home and abroad was introduced briefly at first.In the meanwhile, the characteristics of material flow of cold extrusion and deformation oftube axial extrusion were presented. The research method of FE simulation with thecombination of process experiments was employed to investigate the cold extrusion ofelectrode terminal. After discussing the structure and shape features of the electrodeterminal in detail, two forming process schemes were designed and their processparameters were calculated. After choosing appropriate process parameters, finite elementsoftware DEFORM-3D was used to simulate the forming process of the two formingprocess schemes. The material flow characteristics, attribution of effective strain, effectivestress and forming load during the forming procedure were reveled and the forming defectof the part was predicted at the same time. Deformation law of electrode terminal for eachprocess scheme was grasped and the final forming process scheme was determined afterthe comparison of simulation results of the two forming process schemes.Based on the simulation results, two sets of moulds for the electrode terminal coldextrusion were designed. In order to verify the feasibility of the cold extrusion scheme,upset extrusion experiments were carried out and satisfied parts were gained. Therefore,the results demonstrated that cold extrusion could succeed in manufacturing electrodeterminal part.