Abstract
In this study, the reason of die fracture occurring in hot forging of an aluminum fixed scroll was studied, based on experiments and finite element predictions. The material is assumed to be rigid-viscoplastic, and the die is rigid for the finite element predictions. The stress in the tension at the wrap root is known to cause brittle fracture, and the increase in the tensile stress is owing to the unbalanced filling of material into the die cavities between both sides of the warp. Based on the empirical and numerical achievements, the effects of geometrical parameters of the material on the die fracture were examined to find practical measures for elongated die life. It has been shown from the parametric study that the material with the optimized trapezoidal cross-section, which can be easily made during cutting or the optimized cylindrical billet with its eccentric placement in the die cavity, can considerably reduce the magnitude of the tensile stress around the die corner fractured, indicating that economical manufacturing with reduced number of stages and elongated die life can be realized at once using the optimized practical initial material.
