A study of the hydrostatic extrusion of copper-clad aluminium tube

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the hydrostatic extrusion process of copper-clad aluminium tube. In this study, the rigid-plastic finite-element method is used to analyze the steady-state extrusion process of the bimetal tube. Simulations are performed for copper-clad aluminium tube to give the distributions of the effective strain rate, equivalent stress and hardness for some extrusion ratios and die angles. In addition, the interface profile of the bimetal tube is predicted by tracking a particle path at the interface in the Eulerian domain. Experiments are carried out for copper-clad aluminium tube at room temperature. It is found that the finite-element predictions are generally in good agreement with the experimental observations. Detailed comparisons of the extrusion loads and interface profiles by the finite-element method with those from experiment are given. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.