Semisolid forging of steel component for automotive industry

Abstract

Nowadays, globalisation enables a rapid uptake of the classical manufacturing and production technologies, thus making it much harder for European companies to compete with low labour costs of emerging countries. In order to remain competitive, these factories, such as OEM´s and automotive companies, have to either relocate their main production to low labour cost countries or invest in innovative production processes; in so doing they mainly allow lowering raw material consumption and production time while they perform high quality components. In this industrial framework, with the current trend in prices of raw material and their sources, near net shaping of mechanical components will become a key factor to get the desired competitiveness. Semisolid metal (SSM) forging is one of those near net shape techniques. It presents several advantages, such as energy efficiency, production rates, smooth die filling and low shrinkage porosity, which together lead to near net shape capability and thus to fewer manufacturing steps than in classical methods. The foregoing advantages have been tried and tested in the semisolid forging cell developed and implemented at the forming laboratory of Mondragon Unibertsitatea. The high quality components, obtained in a single step, show that thixo-lateral forging of steels is a robust and highly repeatable forming process with a great surface finishing and much more remarked details. Material savings of the 20% have been reported together with a substantial decrease of the forming forces. In addition, great mechanical properties have been achieved which brings the process closer to the desired final industrial application.