Typically, aluminum extrusions are a vital part of most homes, however, some individuals don’t even note them. Usually, they are part of the door and window systems, though the use doesn’t stop there. The aluminum bars have countless applications in manufacturing and building industries, so the quality of every product should be impeccable.
Let’s delve into the working principle of the press machine.
The Extrusion Process
Note that extrusion is a process of deformation that manufactures straight, long, semi-finished metal products like bars, tubes, hollow and solid wires and sections (profiles). This process is done at high temperatures using preheated billets based on the method and alloy.
Here’s the process:
Preheat the Steel Die and Aluminum Billet to a Certain Temperature
- The aluminum profile manufacturers heat billets in gas furnaces or induction from room temp to the extrusion. The temperatures will vary as per the final temperature and the alloy.
- After heating the billets, you should be malleable enough to take the needed shape, though still strong enough to keep their shape during movement.
- The push bat begins putting pressure into your heated billet, pushing it close to the die opening.
Load Your Billet Inside the Extrusion Press Container
- To avoid losing heat, the billets are hastily moved from the furnace to the press. They are put into the recipient to then be extruded.
- The ram begins to force pressure inside the hot billet and squeezes it to the die opening.
Extrusion
- Here, the hot aluminum billet is forced via the tool openings. You can modify these openings to make different sizes and shapes. This process is the same as the cookie press, whereby various shaped discs make various cookie designs.
- Once the bars leave the press, they’re now extruded to the needed form.
Controlled Cooling
- After that step, the process is then followed by fast cooling of the extruded profile.
- While leaving the press, the wholly formed profiles are forced via a water bath that ensures equal quenching of the hot aluminum.
- This quenching procedure is important to ensure the needed mechanical properties and sufficient material microstructure.
- To avoid any fabric deformation, you must carry out the cooling process without delays after the extrusion method.
Stretching
- Just after the quenching, the extruded profiles are slashed into the given interphase length.
- The trimmed bars are later grabbed by the puller, which lays them on the runout table to allow them to cool down further.
- In that phase, the extruded profiles are run via a strengthening method that stretches the profiles and ensures mechanical properties by getting rid of the inside tension within the profiles.
Cutting and Last Packaging
- The straightened and quenched profiles are trimmed to the customer’s specified length.
- At this point, the aluminum profiles have the T1/T4 temper properties. To guarantee better T5/T6/T66 temper mechanical properties, the profiles are unnaturally aged.
- The ageing procedure further strengthens the extruded bars and ensures they satisfy the mechanical properties given for personal alloys.
Take Away
For Wangechi, quality is their consistent pursuit, and technology is their driver to get forward. Whether it’s today or in the near future, they believe in “to extend the market with quality, and to develop the brand with integrity”.
You should insist on sincere service and innovation, and their machines constantly adapt to the aluminum profile producer’s development and equipment renewal.
