Aluminum extrusion with a deformable die

Aluminum extrusion process is one of metal forming processes. In aluminum extrusion, a work-piece (billet) is pressed through a die with an opening that closely resembles a desired shape of a profile. By this process, long profiles with an enormous variety of cross-sections can be produced to different markets such as building construction and automotive industry. When the profiles don’t conform to the specifications defined by the customer, they are considered as a scrap. The reason is related to unknown aluminum flow or unknown die deformation. Subsequently the die requires correction or replacement. Here, not only aluminum but also time and energy are lost. Nowadays, this is the way followed in designing extrusion dies. It is called trial and error. At the present time the computer capacities are high. Improvements on finite element methods with respect to mesh management, material modeling and solving the systems of equations are going on. By this, the industrial trial and error can be replaced with numerical simulations to save time, energy and the amount of scrap. The material flow and die deformation can be predicted by the numerical simulations. In this thesis some new developments in aluminum extrusion simulations are reported.