Investigation into cold extrusion preforming of tantalum alloy component using finite element method

Abstract In this work, stress-strain distribution and material flow law of tantalum alloy components in cold extrusion preforming and the influence of critical design factors have been synthetically investigated. Based on the ABAQUS/Explicit platform, a finite element (FE) model was established to study the cold extrusion preforming process and the numerical result agreed well with the experiment. The verified FE model was employed to reveal the influence of pivotal design factors (blank geometry parameter, friction factor between dies and billet and deformation speed) on the formability and forming load of tantalum alloy preform. The results show that the equivalent plastic strain from the upper surface to the lower surface increasingly decreases along the thickness direction of the preform; while along the radial direction, the strain shows the tendency of first increasing and then decreasing. The forming load increases with the improvement of the blank geometry parameter and the friction factor between dies and billet while keeping insensitive to the variation of the deformation speed. In cold extrusion preforming of tantalum alloy component, the optimal initial blank diameter, friction factor between dies and billet and deformation speed of billet are 50 mm, 0.1 and 10 mm/s, respectively.