Process mechanics in continuous friction stir extrusion process of aluminum alloy

Abstract

Friction Stir Extrusion (FSE) is an innovative direct-recycling technology developed for metal machining chips. A rotating die is plunged into a cylindrical chamber containing the material to be recycled during the procedure. The die's stirring action causes strong bonding, enabling for the back extrusion of a full dense rod. One of the technology's major flaws is the process' discontinuity, which limits the volume of extrudes to the chamber's capacity. Based on the previous experience of some of the authors have designed a machine tool for continuous solid-state recycling of metal chips with the aims to overcome the limitations of the discontinuous process which makes it potentially appealing to industry. In this work, Friction Stir Extrusion process is defined, the set-up machines tool is presented, and the experimental findings of case studies are shown and analyzed. Finally, with the goal the mechanics of the FSE continuous process, a numerical model was created starting from the experimental results obtained by discontinuous process.