First Results of Energy Saving at Process Redesign of Die Forging Al-Alloys

The contribution deals with eco-friendly solutions for shortened production chains of forging light alloys. During the die forging operations a remarkable amount of material goes into the flash and later on into chips during finish machining. These low value side products are rich with embedded energy therefore recycling or reprocessing could be very energy saving procedure.In cooperation with a die forging company a shortened reprocessing cycle has been studied starting from re-melting the forging flash and without additional heating to cast preforms for subsequent die forging. As such preforms have not as good formability characteristics as those done from extruded billets the isothermal forging process has been adopted. First results showed that without cracks and other defects the formability is sufficient for a broad spectrum of forgings.To improve the formability a homogenization process of cast preforms has been implemented. As the process started immediately after casting, amount of additional energy for heating was minimized. To reduce voids forging process was redesigned in a way to assure greater hydrostatic pressures in parts during forging. First results were promising therefore research is going towards improving processes without adding significantly more energy as it is needed for casting with homogenization and die forging.