Newest Developments on the Manufacture of Helical Profiles by Hot Extrusion

The paper presents a new innovative direct extrusion process, Helical Profile Extrusion (HPE), which increases the flexibility of aluminum profile manufacturing processes. The application fields of such profiles can be seen in screw rotors for compressors and pumps. The investigations concentrate on experimental and numerical analyses by 3D-FEM simulations to analyze the influence of friction on the material flow in the extrusion die in order to find out the optimal parameters with reference to the twisting angle and contour accuracy. By means of FEM, the profile shape could be optimized by modifying the die design. The numerical results were validated by experiments. For these investigations, a common aluminum alloy AA6060 was used. The accuracy of the profile contour could be improved significantly. However, increasing the twist angle is limited due to geometrical aspects.