There are many types of forging technologies currently being used in the market. The most popular are cold forging, hot forging, and warm extrusion. The warm extrusion or warm forging is one of the techniques that’s in between the two extremes.
As the name suggests, it does not work on metals at room temperature or at crystallization temperature. The forging is done when the metal is slightly heated above room temperature but below the crystallization temperature. In most cases, it works on metals that cannot be cold-forged because of high hardness, but slight heating can make them forgeable.
Just like most of the forging techniques, there are many benefits that come with warm extrusion. That’s what we are going to look at in this article. Check out the following:
Low Cost Per Part
The major reason why both manufacturers and buyers are going for warm extruded parts is the cheaper cost. Warm forged parts are cheaper than hot forged parts, as well as, parts formed using other methods such as casting. This is because the amount to production is lower, and this impacts the pricing.
Flexibility of Operation
With a warm extrusion setup, it is very easy to change your operation to whatever kind of forging you need and also to the kind of products you make. You just need to change the amount of heating, and you can either cold forge or hot forge. For the products you want to forge, you just need to change the die and punch, and you are good to go.
Continuous Operation
The warm extrusion processing enables continuous production. Once you have put together the set up including the right dies, punch, compression pressure, and all other forging aspects, you can carry our mass production. You just need to set the program running, and you are good to go.
High Production Volumes
The amount of forging you can do with warm forging is higher than that of hot forging, casting, and any other forming methods. Apart from cold forging, warm extrusion requires just simple heating of the materials to go striking step. Less heating means less time wastage and more production.
Surface Finish Obtained Is Good
Like most of the forming techniques, warm extrusion produces parts with incredible finish features. In fact, the need to finish work is very minimal with this forging technique. But you can still give forgings minor finishing to improve their appeal.