Forging production plays a very important part in the industry. Aluminum alloys are commonly used materials in the forging process. Those forgings that can be forged by low-carbon steels can be used for aluminum alloy forging production. The introductions about the techniques and the features of aluminum alloy forgings are provided in subsequent contents.
Aluminum alloy forgings can be formed through the forging process by various kinds of forging equipment, like forging hammer, mechanical press, hydraulic press, upsetting machine, ring rolling machine and so on. Such forging process can be classified into several kinds, including open die forging, die forging, roll forging, upset forging, etc. The aluminum forgings with small size, simple shape and less demanding deviation can be forged by forging hammer, while those with large size, requiring severe deformation, should be preferably forged by hydraulic press.
1. Low density. The density of aluminum alloys is equivalent to 34% of that of steel forgings and 30% of that of copper forgings, so aluminum alloys are the ideal lightweight material.
2. High specific strength, specific stiffness, specific modulus and fatigue strength. So aluminum alloy forgings are suitably used as key stressed parts that particularly require light weight. The integrated performance of aluminum alloy forgings is far better than that of other forgings without containing aluminum alloys.
3. Compact internal structure, homogeneous components and no defect. For this reason, aluminum alloy forgings are far more reliable than aluminum alloy castings, aluminum alloy die-castings and even those castings with other materials.
4. Good plasticity. Aluminum alloys can be forged into various complex shapes of high precision forgings with small machining allowance, equivalent to about 20% of machining allowance of thick stretched aluminum plates, thus greatly saving time and costs.
5. Good corrosion resistance and thermal conductivity. Besides, aluminum forgings are non-magnetic. So aluminum forgings are extremely superior to steel forgings.
6. Smooth, bright and pretty surface and durable performance due to good surface treatment.
All in all, aluminum forgings have a range of excellent characteristics, thus paving the way for replacing forgings with steel, copper, magnesium, timber and plastic materials.
