What are the processes for customization of aluminum alloy products and how to choose the appropriate process?

What are the processes for customization of aluminum alloy products and how to choose the appropriate process?

1、 Characteristics of aluminum alloy materials

1. Corrosion resistance

The density of aluminum alloy and aluminum alloy products is only 2.7g/cm3, about 1 / 3 of that of steel, copper or brass (7.83g/cm3 and 8.93g/cm3 respectively). Aluminum shows excellent corrosion resistance under most environmental conditions, including air, water (or brine), petrochemical and many chemical systems.

2. Conductivity

Aluminum alloy profiles are often selected because of their excellent conductivity. On the basis of equal weight, the conductivity of aluminum is close to 1 / 2 of that of copper.

3. Thermal conductivity

The thermal conductivity of aluminum alloy is about 50-60% of that of copper, which is beneficial to the manufacture of heat exchangers, evaporators, heating appliances, cooking utensils, as well as automobile cylinder heads and radiators.

4. Non ferromagnetic

Aluminum alloy profile is non ferromagnetic, which is an important characteristic for electrical industry and electronic industry. Aluminum profiles cannot spontaneously ignite, which is important for applications involving handling or contacting flammable and explosive materials.

5. Machinability

The machinability of aluminum alloy profile is excellent. In various deformed aluminum alloys and cast aluminum alloys, as well as in various states after the production of these alloys, the machining characteristics change greatly, which requires special machine tools or technologies.

6. Formability

Specific tensile strength, yield strength, ductility and corresponding work hardening rate dominate the change of allowable deformation.

7. Recyclability

Aluminum has high recyclability, and the characteristics of recycled aluminum are almost the same as that of primary aluminum.

2、 Aluminum extrusion

1. Extrusion

Extrusion of aluminum alloy products is a means of profile forming. Firstly, the die is designed and manufactured according to the section of profile products, and the heated round cast rod is extruded from the die by extruder. The commonly used grade 6063 alloy also uses an air-cooled quenching process and subsequent artificial aging process during extrusion to complete heat treatment strengthening. Different grades of heat treatable strengthening alloys have different heat treatment systems.

The choice of aluminum alloy brand can be 6061 or 6005, or 7075 with higher hardness requirements, or customized materials of other brands according to the needs of their own products. Generally, the materials can be extruded within the reasonable requirements of the section, then punched, or washed, and finally the surface treatment can be carried out to protect the materials and beautiful effects, as shown in the figure 

The general structural parts of aluminum products are made of extruded materials, which can be formed at one time and then cut and punched, which is easy to assemble and transport.

3、 Casting

Casting - melting metal, manufacturing mold, pouring molten metal into the mold, and obtaining the blank of metal parts with certain shape, size and performance after solidification

Casting is the process of melting metal into a liquid that meets certain requirements and pouring it into the mold. After cooling, solidification and cleaning, the castings with predetermined shape, size and performance are obtained. Because the casting blank is almost formed, it can achieve the purpose of no machining or a small amount of processing, reduce the cost and reduce the manufacturing time to a certain extent. Casting is one of the basic processes of modern device manufacturing industry.

Advantages: 1. It can produce parts with complex shape, especially blanks with complex inner cavity;

2. Wide adaptability. Metal materials commonly used in industry can be cast, ranging from a few grams to hundreds of tons;

3. Wide sources of raw materials and low prices, such as scrap steel, scrap parts, chips, etc;

4. The shape and size of the casting are very close to the parts, which reduces the cutting amount and belongs to non cutting processing;

5. It is widely used. 40% ~ 70% of the weight of agricultural machinery and 70% ~ 80% of the weight of machine tools are castings.

Disadvantages: 1. The mechanical performance is not as good as that of forgings, such as coarse structure, many defects, etc;

2. Sand casting, single piece, small batch production, high labor intensity of workers;3. There are many factors that affect the quality of castings.

4. The silicon content of castings is high, and anodizing can not make a good-looking color. For surface treatment, products with hard oxidation and not particularly high surface requirements can be selected, or protective products required for painting can achieve acid and alkali resistance protection grade.

Casting defects have an important impact on the quality of castings. Therefore, in order to lay a good foundation for the selection of casting alloys and casting methods, we should start with the quality of castings and combine the formation and prevention of main defects of castings. As shown 

4、 Cold forging

Cold die forging, cold extrusion, cold heading and other plastic processing. Cold forging is the forming process below the recrystallization temperature of materials, and it is forging below the recovery temperature. In production, forging without heating blank is used to be called cold forging. Cold forging materials are mostly aluminum and some alloys, copper and some alloys, low carbon steel, medium carbon steel and low alloy structural steel with low deformation resistance and good plasticity at room temperature. Cold forging has good surface quality and high dimensional accuracy, which can replace some cutting. Cold forging can strengthen the metal and improve the strength of parts.

Cold forging, also known as cold volume forming, is a manufacturing process and a processing method. It is basically the same as the cold stamping process. Cold forging process is also composed of three elements: material, die and equipment. Only the material in stamping processing is mainly plate, while the material in cold forging processing is mainly disc or wire.

Japan is called cold forging (cold forging for short), China is called cold upsetting, and some screw factories also like to call it head.

Process advantages

Cold forging process is a precision plastic forming technology, which has incomparable advantages of cutting processing, such as good mechanical properties, high productivity and high material utilization. It is especially suitable for mass production, and can be used as the manufacturing method of final products (net shape forming). It is widely used in transportation, aerospace, machine tool industry and other industries.

Process shortcomings

High material requirements; Not suitable for a small amount of processing; High mold requirements; Mold costs are high.

Epilogue

How to choose the appropriate manufacturing method of aluminum products, we should choose the production mode with high cost performance according to the characteristics of our products and choose the appropriate manufacturer for cooperation.