QForm Extrusion
Metals that are highly plastic at elevated temperatures (most typically aluminum and magnesium alloys) can be extruded into profiles with very complex shapes. These extruded profiles are used in the construction and building industry as well as in the bodies of cars, trains and other products such as seamless pipes.
The tools for complex extrusion profiles can take a long time to design properly. The use of simulation software significantly speeds up the development time of extrusion tooling and also predicts the quality of the extruded product.
QForm Extrusion simulation, Transversal seem welds
QForm Extrusion simulation, Effective strain distribution
QForm Extrusion is the only program in the market that can perform simulations of material flow that are thermally and mechanically coupled to the die deformation even for very complicated thin walled profiles. QForm Extrusion was developed for simulation analysis of material flow during the extrusion process and for analysis of the stress-strain-state of die set. The program features parametric representation of the bearing geometry and state-of-the-art automatic meshing algorithms. By keeping the bearing geometry as a parametric surface, QForm Extrusion is able to consider cases when die deformation causes local zones of very fine inclination of choke or relief that may vary by just a few angular minutes. Simulation results and actual production of our customers as well as laboratory tests have shown that, though small, such bearing angle variation may significantly influence the material flow patterns. The software has been developed to be used by production engineers and die designers so it is not necessary to know anything about finite element method to run accurate simulations.
QForm Extrusion simulation, Effective stress distribution in the tool
QForm Extrusion simulation, Die deflection
Advantages of QForm Extrusion:
- Simulation of mechanically and thermally coupled problems of material flow and die deformation
- High simulation speed of the most complicated profiles thanks to a special Lagrange-Euler approach that was developed by QuantorForm specialists
- Very accurate results of simulation thanks to a specially developed coupled mechanical and thermal task
- An intuitive interface and easy input of initial data allow for a short learning curve
- Fully automatic simulation process
- View and analysis of results of the simulation during calculation process
QForm Extrusion simulation, Profile velocity along Z axis
QForm Extrusion simulation, Profile velocity along Z axis
Features of QForm Extrusion:
- Simulation of any kind of profiles
- Coupled mechanical and thermal task
- Prediction of extrusion load
- Temperature, stress, strain, velocity distribution in any cross cut section
- Front end shape prediction
- Bearing height optimization
- Longitudinal and transversal seams weld prediction
- Tracing of the points
- Accurate calculation of entire billet heat gradient
- Report generation
Longitudinal seem welds. Exactly the same picture as in the simulation
QForm Extrusion simulation, Longitudinal seem welds
QForm Extrusion has successfully participated in all the independent international benchmarks since 2005:
- Benchmark Extrusion 2005 Zurich, Switzerland
- Benchmark 2007, ICEB, Bologna, Italy
- Benchmark 2009, ICEB, Dortmund, Germany
- Benchmark 2011, ICEB, Bologna, Italy
- Benchmark 2013, ICEB, Dortmund, Germany
- Benchmark 2015, ICEB, Florence, Italy
To get a QForm software license contact us.
