A Low Force Extrusion Technique for Producing Wide-Thin Aluminium Panels

Wide-thin aluminium components have a wide range of applications in rib-reinforced structures in aircraft, floor and body panels for trains/underground/buses and battery trays for electric cars. Extrusion is an effective manufacturing method for producing such kind of components, but the main issue is that the extrusion ratio is very high and thus requires extra-large extrusion machines, which is not economical. This research introduces a new extrusion method, which has multiple extrusion containers, for producing wide-thin aluminium components with significant reduction of extrusion ratios and thus reducing extrusion forces. The technology is known as multi-container extrusion technique, and the principle is to use several small extrusion containers to replace the traditional single large extrusion cylinder to decrease the extrusion ratio, and therefore enables the manufacturing of wide-thin profiles with significant reduction of extrusion forces. Experimental and numerical studies have been carried out to testify the feasibility of this method. A three-container extrusion system has been established and used to produce different aluminium components and case studies are presented.