Warm Extrusion: What Is Warm Extrusion and Advantages

Over the years, metals have been molded into different shapes and designs. The oldest forming technology used for years is the forging process. Forging is where metals are heated before hammering them into different shapes. But there are many types of forging today. In this article, we look at the warm extrusion process.

What is warm extrusion?

Warm extrusion is a forging method where a metal workpiece is slightly heated before extrusion or below the full crystallization temperature. It’s neither hot nor cold. Warm extrusion is also called warm forging. Though it is the most recently developed method of forging, it is used widely in almost all manufacturing industries across the world. This is process molds machine parts like gears. They also make workshop equipment and other metallic objects that use average tough metals.

What is the Process of Warm Extrusion?

This forging method is similar to hot forging. The difference is the temperature ranges. In Warm Extrusion, a workpiece is first placed inside a forge. Inside the forge, the temperatures range between 650 to 1000 degrees Celsius, but for simpler designs, it can range between 740 to 770 degrees centigrade. Once reaching the desired temperature, they are hammered into new shapes and designs using different forging tools.

What are the Advantages of Warm Extrusion?

Compared to other methods, Warm Extrusion has some way better chances of being used in manufacturing industries due to some of the following advantages:

Production of Quantity Parts

Metals used are not very hard in this method. This makes the operation quick when forging the parts into their shapes. Within a given time, many parts are made to cope with the market demands.

Low Cost of Operation

After heating using Warm Extrusion, the workpiece requires minimum punching. This uses smaller tools that are cheaper than using huge machines that are used in hard metals. This is mostly looked into before manufacturing, as every business is intended to decrease operating costs while increasing profit.

Flexible Shapes

After the metal is forged, it can be hammered into different shapes and designs because they are not as hard. This allows the making of even complex shapes.