Introduction of Roll Forging application in Straight Control Arm preform forging process
When make forging preform with traditional hammer, not only the forging environment is worse, but also the free forging requires high skills of the workers and will cause serious material waste, which greatly limits the material utilization rate and process stability. With the advancement of industrialization, human resources have become an important influencing factor restricting the development of forging industry.
Automatic Roll Forging is able to effectively reduce the labor intensity, strictly ensure the consistency of the preform, so as to improve the utilization rate of materials and process stability, while reducing the cost of labor cost. However, due to the constraints of cost factors, process and other factors, the roll forging process hasn't been widely promoted in the world, and the application of Automatic Roll Forging in small and medium-sized enterprises is less.
We-Hongjie Forging has over 30 years of experience in design, manufacturing and sales of Roll Forging machine and Cross Wedge Rolling, which fills the gap in the industry. More than 1000 sets of our equipments have been delivered to customers in China and the world so far, which are widely used in auto parts, electric power fittings, locks, construction machinery and other industries.
In this article, how our original ZGD series Automatic Roll Forging is applied in the automobile Straight Control Arm forging process is introduced, while optimizing the original forging forming process, the material utilization rate is increased by more than 15%.
Technology analysis
FIG. 1 is the Straight Control Arm. It can be seen that the workpiece is a typical three-head complex straight forging part, and the section changes drastically along the axial direction, it is difficult to distribute the materials before final forging.
Its original forging process is: air hammer perform making - screw press final forging - punch trimming correction
In this process, in order to achieve reasonable distribution of materials, the proficiency requirement of hammer operators is high. It will takes about 20 seconds to make and has a 5% waste rate. Figure 2 shows the preform made by hammer, it can be easily seen that after air hammering, the preform basically meets the structural requirements. However, the surface is uneven and has sharp corners in the middle, which increases the folding and cracks risk in the final forging; the weight is heavy while the material utilization rate is only 70%. Not only it wastes resources and energy, but also increases the metal deformation of the final forging and affects the life of the final forging die.
For the mass production of this Straight Control Arm, using Hongjie ZGD-300 Automatic Roll Forging Machine in Figure 3, which is equipped with an automatic feeding manipulator and forging manipulator, the technical specifications of the equipment are shown in Table 1
Process design
By analyzing this part and improving the material utilization as much as possible under the premise of ensuring the process stability, firstly design the roll forging preform drawing of the Straight Control Arm.
Through the process analysis and calculations, determine the roll forging passes and the shape of each pass hole type, establish the four-pass roll forging die geometry model shown in Figure 5.
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Numerical simulation and production test
The numerical model of Roll Forging die is introduced into the finite element numerical simulation software to simulate the process of roll forging and final forging, which can fully predict the flow of metal. The results of roll forging preform and final forging of the Straight Control Arm are shown in Figure 6. It can be seen that the material distribution of preform is consistent with that of final forging, the material in the both ends and the middle bulge are reasonably distributed, and the flash edge is evenly distributed, achieving the expected effect.
The die was installed on the ZGD-300 Roll Forging Machine for production test. The test results are shown in Figure 7. It can be seen that the surface of the preform is smooth, without folding or irregular protrusions. Through the roll forging process, the material utilization rate reaches 83%, and the consistency of the preform is good, which greatly reduces the material waste.
Since the equipment was put into production for a year, 500,000 pieces of Straight Control Arm have been produced, saving up to 100 tons of materials and reducing much labor cost. The benefits created have far exceeded the investment cost of the equipment and achieved good economic results. When the air hammer is used to make preform, only 1,800 pieces can be produced per shift. After using the fully Automatic Roll Forging Machine, the number can be reach to 4,000 pieces per shift, which fully utilizes the capabilities of the forging production line and greatly improves production efficiency.
Ending
ZGD-300 Automatic Roll Forging Machine has incomparable advantages in this kind of forging part: high production efficiency, good forging accuracy, saving raw materials, realizing automation while saving costs for enterprises.
Hongjie forging-your trusted partner in automation forging preform solution.
Contact us to know how we can help for your forging process：
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