The hottest hyperxtrue realizes digital mold desig

How to predict and analyze various potential mold design defects in the early stage of mold manufacturing is very important to improve mold manufacturing quality and shorten mold manufacturing cycle. Using hyperxtride finite element extrusion software to verify the die design can guide and solve many problems in the design and manufacturing of extrusion dies

in the early stage of design and manufacturing, aluminum extrusion dies require high experience of technicians. Traditional design methods have shortcomings such as long design cycle, high cost and difficult quality assurance. With the successful application of finite element numerical simulation technology (CAE Technology) in aluminum extrusion manufacturing industry, it has brought a revolutionary leap for the design and manufacture of extrusion dies, and brought the design and manufacture of extrusion dies into a new stage of development. This design and manufacturing concept based on numerical simulation technology has many advantages: after the initial design of the mold, the virtual mold test replaces the physical mold test on the computer to reduce the mold design cost; Greatly shorten the mold design and manufacturing cycle to ensure delivery time; Provide accurate calculation results for designers, analyze, evaluate and optimize the mold design scheme, so as to improve the quality of mold design; It is conducive to the accumulation of design knowledge and experience

hyperxtrue is a professional finite element application software of Altair engineering software company for analyzing material flow and heat transfer in extrusion production process. Hyperxtrue adopts a robust solution algorithm, which has powerful functions and high calculation accuracy. It has been successfully applied in the design and manufacture of aluminum extrusion dies

create finite element model of extrusion die

take an actual extrusion hollow shunting die as an example, this paper introduces in detail the model creation process of realizing finite element analysis of material flow by rxtrude software, which is a weak operation in hype domestic mining market. Figure 1 shows the die diagram and profile section shape

Figure 1 Diagram of hollow shunting die and profile shape

1 Finite element model of material flow of extrusion die

in order to analyze and study the flow performance of materials along the extrusion die, first extract the geometry of the die and the inner surface of the extrusion barrel through which the material flows, and then create the finite element models as shown in Figure 2 respectively. It mainly includes four parts: bar material, shunting hole and welding cavity, working belt and profile. According to the deformation degree of the material in the extrusion process and its influence on the flow results, if there is a specimen fracture in each part, the size and density requirements of the cell outside the marking line are different. For example, near the die outlet, the material deformation is the most intense, so the cell in this area is dense, and the cell size in the bar should be as large as possible. This kind of cell allocation, on the one hand, ensures the calculation accuracy, on the other hand, can minimize the size of the whole model and improve the calculation efficiency

Figure 2 finite element lattice model of material flowing through the mold

2 Creation of boundary conditions

Figure 3 shows the schematic diagram of extrusion process, including different parts and materials in the tool. According to the different areas where the material flows through the tool in the extrusion process and their mutual contact, their respective boundary conditions and parameters are created respectively. It mainly includes:

Figure 3 definition of boundary conditions of extrusion die and material

(1) interface between extrusion block and bar

(2) interface between extrusion barrel and bar

(3) the interface between the die and the bar

(4) boundary conditions of working zone surface

(5) boundary conditions of profile surface

(6) profile exit boundary conditions

(7) outside the extrusion barrel and die

3. Selection and creation of materials

HyperXtrude software supports a variety of materials and structural relationship models of materials. The built-in material library contains 5 categories and more than 70 kinds of material data. The analyst can select the corresponding materials as needed and assign them to the corresponding models. At the same time, the software includes an easy-to-use material tool, which can modify the material performance data or create new materials as needed, and save them in the material library, which is easy to use in the future. Figure 4 shows the performance parameters of AA6061 material

Figure 4 material performance parameters

4 Input and solution control of extrusion process parameters

define extrusion process parameters according to the actual extrusion process conditions, mainly including: bar preheating temperature, initial temperature of die, initial temperature of extrusion barrel, inner diameter of extrusion barrel, length of bar and extrusion block speed, etc. Solution control mainly includes: analysis type, extrusion type, calculation type, convergence error, iteration times, time step and job submission type. According to the needs of this example, it is mainly to verify the mold design, analyze the material flow and predict the deformation of the profile. As shown in Figure 5, select the corresponding parameters and solve the control

Figure 5 selection of extrusion process parameters and solution control

result analysis and evaluation

Figure 6 shows the distribution of pressure field and temperature field, and Figure 7 shows that potential welding problems will lead to uneven local temperature distribution on the profile and cause local thinning of the profile

Figure 6 distribution of pressure field and temperature field

Figure 7 potential welding problems cause uneven local temperature distribution and profile thinning

figure 8 shows the velocity field distribution of profile. The left figure shows the velocity distribution of profile. It can be seen that the material flow rate is very uneven, resulting in imbalance of material flow and deformation of profile. The right figure shows the velocity distribution of the material in the shunt hole along the extrusion direction. Uneven velocity of the material in the shunt hole will affect the deformation of the profile

figure 8. Uneven velocity leads to material flow imbalance and deformation

according to the above calculation results and analysis and evaluation, and compared with the actual extrusion results, HyperXtrude can accurately predict the potential defects of the initial design scheme of the extrusion die, so as to further propose improvement plans, and successfully verify and solve the problems in the actual extrusion production

conclusion

by using hyperxtride extrusion simulation software, the potential shortcomings of extrusion die design are successfully predicted, which can really help die designers solve the existing practical problems. Practice has proved that hyperxtrue software will bring great benefits to aluminum extrusion manufacturers: through robust, reliable and rapid numerical simulation of extrusion forming, minimize die design time and reduce design cost; It is proposed that the first week of November of each year should be designated as "Green Express Publicity Week" to verify and confirm the newly designed mold; Calculate and optimize the working belt and its length; Reduce the expensive production cost caused by repeated mold trial. (end)