Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 67–74

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Journal of Materials Processing Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmatprotec

Press for hydrostatic extrusion with back-pressure and the properties

of thus extruded materials
J. Skiba ∗ , W. Pachla, A. Mazur, S. Przybysz, M. Kulczyk, M. Przybysz, M. Wróblewska
Institute of High Pressure Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences (Unipress), ul. Sokolowska 29, 01-142 Warszawa, Poland

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A press for hydrostatic extrusion within the extrusion pressure range up to 2 GPa with back-pressure up
Received 1 February 2013 to 0.7 GPa was designed and constructed. The press is equipped with an integrated pressure intensifier,
Received in revised form 12 July 2013 and a control and recording system which permits recording the process parameters, such as extru-
Accepted 19 July 2013
sion pressure, back-pressure and its stability, time and speed of the extrusion, and enables monitoring
Available online 6 August 2013
the process on-line. The double-layer high-pressure chamber and the monobloc back-pressure chamber
were analyzed using the finite element method with allowance made for the self-strain-hardening effect
Keywords:
known as autofrettage. The maximum permissible load imposed on chambers and the resulting balance
Hydrostatic extrusion
Back pressure
pressure established in the case of the two chambers being accidentally connected were also evaluated.
Mechanical properties Several cold extrusion processes assisted with back-pressure from 400 MPa to 700 MPa were conducted,
Ductility experimenting with low or non-ductile materials, such as the ZW3 magnesium alloy, GJL250 grey cast
Nodal stress iron, GJS500 nodular cast iron, bismuth of 99.999% purity, and molybdenum of 99.9% purity. The bulk,
non-defected products with diameters ranging from 4 to 7 mm were obtained. The use of back-pressure
permitted the materials to be plastically deformed during a single cold operation with the percent defor-
mation from 36% in grey cast iron to more than 80% in Bi. Thanks to the strain-hardening due to the
severe plastic deformation, the materials acquired excellent properties (YS = 392 MPa in the magnesium
alloy,  d0.2 = 709 MPa in molybdenum,  dM = 1140 MPa in grey cast iron, and  d0.2 = 643 MPa in nodular
cast iron) impossible to achieve by classical plastic deformation processes. The hardness of the materials
was also increased adequately, and the refinement of their microstructure resulted in an increase of duc-
tility. These advantageous results obtained by using the press indicate that hydrostatic extrusion with
back-pressure has a great applicative potential.
© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The great worldwide interest observed in new materials with
specific properties stimulates progress in the techniques of their
shaping by plastic deformation. Investigations to date have con-
firmed the capacity of the hydrostatic extrusion process (HE) to
generate severe plastic deformation (SPD) in materials frequently
in those which cannot be easily deformed by traditional meth-
ods such as rolling, drawing, forging, or conventional extrusion.
For example, severe plastic deformation by HE resulting in sig-
nificant grain refinement was applied for AA2017, CP titanium,
copper, iron, aluminium and stainless steel (Pachla et al., 2006) with
additionally enhanced effects when HE was combined with ECAP
(Kulczyk et al., 2007). Thus, hydrostatic extrusion permits produc-
ing materials with better mechanical properties. It was presented
among others by Kulczyk et al. (2006) for nickel, by Pachla et al.
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +48 22 632 5010; fax: +48 22 632 4218.
E-mail address: skiba@unipress.waw.pl (J. Skiba).
(2008) for titanium and recently by Kulczyk et al. (2012) for cop-
per alloy. Analogously, after HE Garbacz et al. (2010) has shown an
improvement in titanium fatigue and Oksiuta et al. (2010) in impact
strengths of ODS ferritic steel. The high extrusion pressures also
permit cold deforming brittle materials which show non-ductility,
such as cast iron (Pachla et al., 2011) or magnesium alloys (Pachla
et al., 2012a,b). Some of these materials, e.g. the so-called ‘light’
materials (aluminium alloys and titanium alloys), copper alloys or
austenitic steel are of great significance in industry.
Hydrostatic extrusion was patented by Robertson (1893),
whereas the earliest scientific experiments were conducted by
Bridgman (1952) who was the first to design a pressure chamber
based on the Lame equation. Extensive experiments with HE chiefly
conducted by Pugh and Gunn (1963) during the next years led to
the conception of back-pressure (BP). According to this conception
the deformed material after its leaving the die to pass to the BP
chamber, is subjected to compressive hydrostatic stresses induced
by the pressurizing medium contained in the BP chamber. This per-
mitted deforming brittle materials and those difficult to deform.
The first positive results with BP applied to conventionally extruded

0924-0136/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2013.07.014
68 J. Skiba et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 67–74

bismuth, magnesium, and brass were published by Pugh and Green

(1958). The first attempts at combining hydrostatic extrusion with
back pressure (HE + BP) were made by Pugh and Low (1964) but
they did not give spectacular results. Although, the back pressure
has shown to be critical to prevent cracking in hydrostatic extrusion
of Al–Cu–Si alloy (Yamada et al., 1972) in next years, investigations
on the extrusion against back-pressure were not continued chiefly
because of the complexity of the required equipment and its high
cost.
However, the ‘back-pressure’ concept in metal forming started
to be commonly applied to other materials and deformation pro-
cesses. In cold forming of metal matrix composites a counter punch
generating compressive state within the MMC during forming
has been introduced (Wagener and Wolf, 1993). Other approach
included fibre reinforced MMC with Al2 O3 particles forward or
backward cold extruded in AA6061 or AA6082 sleeve (Minghetti
et al., 2001). Suitable counter pressure was necessary to prevent
cracking of AZ31 magnesium alloy below 150 ◦ C in conventional
forward extrusion (Chandrasekaran and Yong, 2004) or during
equal channel angular pressing ECAP (Xia et al., 2005). Ductil-
ity enhancement of brittle materials due to micro-cracks arrested
by the external confining pressure was also discussed by Tirosh
and Abraham (2007). This pressure was roughly estimated to be
of the order of the material strength. The concept of counter
pressure was also successfully adapted in hydromechanical deep
drawing of stepped geometries leading to increased deep drawing
ratio and better outer surfaces than in conventional deep drawing
(Khandeparkar and Liewald, 2008).
In case of hydrostatic extrusion an alternative method to deform
difficult materials became deformation at elevated temperatures.
Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the press for hydrostatic extrusion with back-
For very brittle magnesium alloys hydrostatic extrusion at temper-
pressure (HE + BP), designed and constructed at Unipress.
atures between 100 and 300 ◦ C was introduced (Bohlen et al., 2005;
Swiostek et al., 2006). However, the mechanical properties of the
materials fabricated by this method were not so good because of 2.1. Pressure intensifier
the increased activity of thermal phenomena such as recovery and
recrystallization. The press is equipped with a pressure intensifier connected to
The paper presents a unique integrated press intended for external hydraulic supply unit with an operating pressure of 32 MPa
hydrostatic extrusion with the outflow of the material into back- and efficiency of 28 L/min. The pressure intensifier is integrated
pressure (HE + BP) which is stabilized during the extrusion process. with the press frame and controls the plunger movement within
It also describes several HE + BP experiments with the use of this the HE chamber. The pressure intensifier, with the pressure multi-
press for extruding materials which are not liable to cold plas- plication ratio of 1:70, generates pressure of maximum 2000 MPa
tic deformation applied by traditional methods and discusses the in the HE chamber and governs the plunger movements at a speed
results obtained. of max 12 mm/s.

2.2. High-pressure (HE) zone – HE chamber and plunger

2. Construction of the press
The basic parameters of the HE chamber are given in Table 1.
The process of hydrostatic extrusion with back-pressure differs The double-layer HE chamber with the operating pressure of max.
from classical hydrostatic extrusion in that, here, the material is 2000 MPa was designed based on the Lame equation derived for
forced into a sealed back-pressure chamber (BP). The back-pressure thick-walled cylinders presented in Timoshenko (1930). The cham-
restricts the development of cracks and microcracks generated ber layer was made of 45 HNMFA steel which has a high Young
when the material is within the plastic zone of the die, or are initi- modulus within a wide hardness and strength range and is charac-
ated during the stress relaxation which takes place in the product terized by the susceptibility to through hardening in large volumes.
after the extrusion. The plunger with the length-to-diameter ratio L/d = 9.52 was made
Fig. 1 shows schematically the press intended for hydrostatic of high-speed S600 steel with high compressive strength and good
extrusion with back-pressure (HE + BP), designed and constructed resistance to buckling (high rigidity).
at the Institute of High Pressure Physics, Polish Academy of Sci-
ences, Unipress. There are three operational zones in the press,
Table 1
namely: (a) low-pressure zone with a pressure intensifier and a Parameters of the hydrostatic extrusion chamber.
hydraulic supply unit, (b) high-pressure HE zone comprising a
Maximum extrusion pressure 2000 MPa
double-layer chamber designed to bear the maximum HE pres-
Chamber diameter 22 mm
sure of 2000 MPa, a plunger, and a sealed plug with a die, and Chamber length 500 mm
(c) back-pressure zone BP with a single-layer chamber designed Maximum plunger linear velocity 12 mm/s
to withstand a pressure of 700 MPa, an external supply unit and an Maximum billet diameter 18 mm
overflow valve for stabilizing the back-pressure. Maximum billet length 325 mm
 J. Skiba et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 67–74 69

Table 2 Table 4
Material parameters of 45 HNMFA steel (AISI 4340) used for modelling of HE and BP Parameters of the back pressure chamber.
chambers.
Maximum back pressure 700 MPa
Outer layer of HE chamber Inner layer Chamber diameter 20 mm
monoblock BP chamber Chamber length 165 mm
Maximum product diameter 7 mm
Hardness 42HRC 52HRC
Maximum product length 250 mm
Densitya 7850 kg/m3
Young modulus 1.79E+05 MPa 1.93E+05 MPa
Poisson’s ratioa 0.3
Bulk modulus 1.49E+05 MPa 1.69E+05 MPa
Shear modulus 6.88E+04 MPa 7.36E+04 MPa
The analysis of the nodal stress induced in the HE chamber is
Tensile yield strength 1150 MPa 1360 MPa shown in Fig. 2a.
Tensile ultimate strength 1260 MPa 1520 MPa Fig. 2a illustrates the effect of the chamber autofrettage
a
MatWeb. described in Ryan (1982) which takes place when the yield point
of 45 HNMFA steel ( d0.2 = 1360 MPa) is exceeded resulting in the
Table 3 inner near-surface layer of the chamber lining deform plastically
Material parameters of S600 steel (AISI M2) used for modelling of plunger and and being strengthened. This effect permits avoiding decompres-
connector. sion of the chamber when it operates at extremely high pressures,
Hardness 64HRC and improves the tribological conditions between the plunger and
Densitya 8100 kg/m3 the chamber wall.
Young modulus 2.17E+05 MPa The isotropic elastic model of mirror symmetry was applied to
Poisson’s ratioa 0.31
FEM analysis of the plunger of the S600 steel (AISI M2) (Table 3). The
Bulk modulus 2.26E+05 MPa
Shear modulus 8.09E+04 MPa
design of the plunger was analyzed by the finite element method
Compressive ultimate strength 3200 MPa (FEM) using tetrahedral four-node elements. Plunger was fixed
a from one end and load at its top surface with the maximal working
MatWeb.
pressure of pHE = 2000 MPa originating from the operating extru-
sion pressure within the working chamber. Reduced nodal stresses
Material properties of 45 HNMFA (AISI 4340) steel for hydro- in plunger under load are shown in Fig. 2b.
static chamber and back pressure chamber and S600 (AISI M2)
steel for plunger and connector in hardening and tempering state
were evaluated by the static tensile test (HE chamber and BP cham- 2.3. Back-pressure (BP) zone and the connector between the BP
ber) and compressive static test (plunger and connector) supported and HE chambers
by literature (MatWeb Material Property Data) are presented in
Tables 2 and 3. The basic component of the back-pressure zone is the monobloc
The non-linear elastic plastic model with bilinear characteristic BP chamber, made of 45 HNMFA steel. It is supplied from an
with use of mirror symmetry was applied to FEM analysis. Cham- external hydraulic supply unit, see Fig. 1. Its most important param-
ber layers were defined as elastic with rough contact between eters are given in Table 4.
them and with an infinite high friction leading to evaluation of The design and operation of the BP chamber was also verified by
negative allowance 0.46 mm. The design of the HE chamber was the FEM method based on the Lame equation. The border condition
analyzed by the finite element method (FEM) using hexahedral and discretization parameters were this same as for hydrostatic
eight-node elements. The maximum permissible load (extrusion extrusion chamber.
pressure) imposed normal to inner chamber surface was assumed In the analysis, the load imposed on the BP chamber was taken
to be pHE = 2000 MPa. to have the maximum permissible value of 700 MPa, see Fig. 3.

Fig. 2. Analysis of the nodal stresses in (a) HE chamber and (b) HE plunger.
70 J. Skiba et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 67–74

(a) 1000
900 Mg alloy ZW3
800

700

pHE, pBP (MPa)

600

500

400
pHE
300

200

100 pBP
0
0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 250
time (s)
(b) 1000

900 Mg alloy ZW3

800
755MPa
700 pHE
600

pHE, pBP (MPa)

Fig. 3. Analysis of the nodal stresses in the back-pressure (BP) chamber.
500 10MPa
pBP 425MPa
400
Chamber has elastic frictionless support with load vector nor- 400MPa
mal to its inner surface. Here too, one can observe the effect of 300

autofrettage of the inner near-surface layer of the chamber lining. 5s

200
The press component, which is of critical importance for
100
the strength of the two high-pressure chambers (2000 MPa vs.
700 MPa) and for their sealing, is the anvil of the connector installed 0
between them. It was necessary to construct it in the form of a 120 122 124 126 128 130 132 134 136 138 140

double-layer cylinder made of S600 steel as shown in Fig. 4. time (s)

The border condition and discretization parameters were this
Fig. 5. Pressure characteristic of cold hydrostatic extrusion with back-pressure of
same as for plunger. Chamber layers were defined as elastic with
the ZW3 magnesium alloy (a) a complete cycle and (b) magnification of the extrusion
rough contact between them and with an infinite high friction lead- stage.
ing to evaluation of negative allowance 0.1 mm. State of stresses
were evaluated for maximal working pressure in both chambers
(2000 MPa vs. 700 MPa). 2.4. Connection between the HE and BP pressures – resulting
balance pressure

During the HE process there is a danger of an uncontrolled out-

flow of the material from the die which may result in the HE and
BP chambers being connected and the pressures within them being
equalized to the resulting balance pressure. If so happens, the max-
imum permissible load imposed on the BP (700 MPa) chamber may
be exceeded. However, an analysis of this situation has shown that
the BP chamber can withstand even the maximum resulting bal-
ance pressure possible to occur evaluated for 1505 MPa. To protect
the BP chamber against overloading the overflow valve is installed
in the BP zone (Fig. 1).

2.5. Operation of the press

Fig. 4. Cross-section of the connector between the HE and BP chambers.
The press was tested and details of the experiments are pre-
sented in works describing utilization of the press for hydrostatic
extrusion with back pressure of brittle materials, as grey and nodu-
lar cast irons (Pachla et al., 2011) and pure magnesium and wrought
magnesium alloys (Pachla et al., 2012a,b).
Fig. 5a shows an example of the pressure characteristic in a
complete (HE + BP) cycle.
One can see the stepwise compression in the HE and BP cham-
bers before the beginning of the extrusion process and their
stepwise decompression after the process. The processed mate-
rial was the magnesium alloy ZW3 (Mg–3.3% Zn–0.7% Zr). It was
 J. Skiba et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 67–74 71

Fig. 6. A ZW3 magnesium alloy rod after cold hydrostatic extrusion with back-pressure (HE + BP), showing traces of the stick-slip effect.

extruded against the back-pressure pBP = 400 MPa to reduce its The stick-slip effect mostly occurs when the plunger movement
diameter to 7 mm with the extrusion ratio R = 1.62 (percent defor- is too slow. It could be eliminated by increasing the extrusion
mation r = 38.3%) where R is defined as the ratio of the material speed. However the sensitivity of the magnesium alloys to the
cross-section areas before and after the extrusion. The average strain rate did not permit increasing much the extrusion speed.
extrusion speed was 0.5 cm/s. In our experiment with extruding the Mg alloy, the back-pressure
In order to maintain the separation between the two pressure oscillations did not exceed ±5 MPa at the average BP value of
zones, i.e. between the HE and BP chambers which are separated ∼425 MPa, whereas the set BP value was 400 MPa. The actual BP
only by the billet material, it is necessary that the both chambers was thus higher by 6.3% than the desired value and was stabi-
should be loaded stepwise so that at each stage of the process the lized with an accuracy of ±1.2%. These discrepancies depend on the
pressure pHE is always higher than pBP (pHE > pBP ), see Fig. 5a. At back-pressure magnitude and the properties of the extruded mate-
the same time, the HE pressure pHE must be below the extrusion rial. They should be taken into account in planning a given
pressure critical for the extruded material (pHE < pmaterHE
) so that experiment.
the extrusion process does not begin until the BP pressure reaches
the desired value. The stepwise loading of the two chambers is
3. Properties of materials extruded with back-pressure
determined by the properties of the extruded material and by the
adiabatic properties of the pressurizing medium. The oil is heated
The selected materials were: the ZW3 magnesium alloy, GJL250
when compressed and cooled when the compression is stopped,
grey cast iron and GJS500 nodular pearlitic-ferritic cast iron,
results in characteristic pressure falls during the breaks in com-
99.999% bismuth, and 99.9% molybdenum. All materials are
pression (Fig. 5a).
strongly brittle described in the literature as difficult to be treated
Fig. 5b shows a magnified fragment of the pressure charac-
by cold plastic treatments or just unsuitable for these treatments. In
teristic that represents the beginning (left dashed line) and the
Table 5 the extrusion ratios which allow to obtain sound, uncracked
completion (right dashed line) of the extrusion process. The pro-
products after hydrostatic extrusion without and with back pres-
cess is dynamic and last about 5 s. It begins with a pressure peak
sure at room temperature for investigated materials are presented.
followed by a violent pressure fall which occurs when the static
One can see, that for bismuth, molybdenum and grey cast iron
friction is overcome and changed into kinetic friction, and addi-
without back pressure cold deformation was not possible and that
tionally when the HE chamber is decompressed as a result of its
for all materials the back pressure improved ductility. The initial
volume being increased due to the outflow of the material. At the
properties of these materials are given in Table 6, and the prop-
same time, as the extruded material flows into the BP chamber, the
erties of the materials after the cold hydrostatic extrusion with
pressure in it slightly increases until the overflow valve restores
back-pressure are given in Table 7.
the required back-pressure.
For ZW3 magnesium alloy extrusion ratio only R = 1.36 with-
The outflow of the material from the HE chamber is continuous
out BP was obtained. With BP the maximum extrusion ratio
with slight oscillations of the linear extrusion speed which result
after which the final product had a non-cracked bulk structure
from the plunger movement in the HE chamber being unable to
was R = 2.66 (r = 63%). The extrusion speed was 0.8 cm/s and the
restore immediately the HE pressure decreased due to the material
back-pressure was pBP = 700 MPa. The use of back-pressure per-
outflow. The oscillations are initiated by the violent pressure jump
mitted increasing the ductility of the ZW3 alloy up to 63% and,
at the beginning of the extrusion and resemble the oscillation of a
in consequence, significantly improving its strength properties
spring pulled out from its equilibrium state. The oscillations of the
(UTS = 435 MPa, YS = 392 MPa and εf = 12.5% i.e., by 40%, almost 75%,
HE pressure occur regularly and entail similar oscillations of the
and above 55%, respectively), compared to the properties of the
BP pressure but in the inverse direction, i.e. each HE pressure peak
starting material. It was due to the significant grain refinement and
(the beginning of the material outflow acceleration in the HE cham-
texturization presented in Fig. 7.
ber) corresponds to a BP pressure fall (moment of acceleration of
A strong strain-hardening of pure Mg and its alloys after hydro-
the material inflow into the BP chamber). The relation between the
static extrusion with back-pressure has been reported elsewhere
pressure peaks in the two chambers results from the compensating
(Pachla et al., 2012a,b).
action of the overflow valve. The presented extrusion of the magne-
sium alloy required 5 extrusion stages clearly seen on the pressure
characteristic in Fig. 5b. The fluctuations of the material outflow Table 5
speed, known as the stick-slip effect, are reflected disadvanta- Extrusion ratios for hydrostatic extrusion without and with back pressure for which
geously on the surface of the final product, see Fig. 6. This effect sound (uncracked) products were obtained.

commonly occurs in hydrostatic extrusion and is widely reported Material Extrusion ratio Ra
in the literature (Pugh, 1970). It is attributed to the changes in the
Without back pressure With back pressure
thickness of the lubrication film caused by the fluctuation of the
extrusion speed. The darker areas correspond to the acceleration ZW3 magnesium alloy 1.36 2.66
99.999% bismuth none 6.63
of the material outflow and, hence, to the thicker lubrication film 99.9% molybdenum none 1.85
(hydrodynamic lubrication) thus the product is thinner, whereas GJL250 grey cast iron none 1.57
the lighter areas represent the slower material outflow and, in con- GS500 nodular cast iron 1.36 2.12
sequence, thinner lubrication film or its absence (semi-dry either a
R denotes ratio of cross section area before and after hydrostatic extrusion; true
dry friction) and thicker product. strain = ln R.
72 J. Skiba et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 67–74

Table 6
Selected initial properties of investigated materials.

Material Mean grain HV0.2 UTS tensile YS tensile εf tensile  dM compress  d0.2 compress εdM compress
size, d2 (␮m) (MPa) (MPa) (%) (MPa) (MPa) (%)

Bi 99.999% >1 mm 9, 7HBa – – 1.5a – – –

ZW3 (Mg–Zn 3.3%–Zr 0.74%) 5 63 305a 225a 8b – – –
Mo 99.9% 333 227 – – 10a – 400a –
Grey cast iron GJL250 – 252 – – 0.5c 1060 468 19
Nodular cast iron GJS500 – 256 – – 7c 1752 430 47.3
a
MatWeb.
b
Magnesium Elektron.
c
Polish standards.

Table 7
Material properties after hydrostatic extrusion with back pressure (data for maximum possible extrusion ratio).

Material R r (%) Back pressure HV0.2 UTS tensile YS tensile εf tensile  dM compress  d0.2 compress εdM compress
(MPa) (MPa) (MPa) (%) (MPa) (MPa) (%)

Bi 99.999% 6.63 85 408 15 – – – – – –

ZW3 (Mg–Zn 3.3%–Zr 0.74%)a 2.66 62.5 712 96 435 392 12.5 – – –
Mo 99.9% 1.85 46 519 253 – – – 3830 709 69.2
Grey cast iron GJL250 1.57 36 603 286–325 – – – 1140 474 16.7
Nodular cast iron GJS500a 2.12 53 499 355 – – – 2416 643 68
a
Only ZW3 and GJS500 could be cold deformed without back pressure, both with extrusion ratio in one pass R = 1.36, i.e. r = 26.5%.

For GJL250 grey cast iron after HE without BP was not pos-
sible to obtain non-cracked product. Fig. 8a shows GJL250 grey
cast iron after hydrostatic extrusion with back-pressure to diame-
ter 6 mm with the extrusion ratio R = 1.57. The extrusion pressure
was pHE = 1260 MPa, back-pressure was pBP = 540 MPa, and the
extrusion speed was 2.8 cm/s. Fig. 8b shows the same cast iron
extruded without back-pressure and with only 26% deformation
Fig. 8. A GJL250 grey cast iron rod, showing traces of the stick-slip effect, cold
hydrostatically extruded (a) against back-pressure, and (b) without back-pressure.

(R = 1.35). During HE + BP of cast iron the stick-slip effect was also

observed. The hardness of the cast iron increased to 286 HV0.2,
i.e. by more than 13%, and the compressive strength increased to
 dM = 1140 MPa, i.e. by 7.5%. This improvement may be due to the
more preferred arrangement of the graphite flakes along the extru-
sion axis, which can be seen in Fig. 9.
Thanks to the use of back-pressure, the grey cast iron which at
room temperature is fully brittle (εf = 0.5%) could be cold deformed
plastically during a single operation with the deformation above
36%. The nodular cast iron could be successfully extruded without
BP up to R = 1.36, and with BP even up to R = 2.12, i.e., above 50%
during a single cold extrusion operation.

Fig. 9. Longitudinal structure of GJL250 grey cast iron after cold hydrostatic extru-
Fig. 7. Longitudinal microstructure of a ZW3 magnesium alloy (a) before and (b) sion with back-pressure HE + BP with the extrusion ratio R = 1.6 and true strain
after cold hydrostatic extrusion with back pressure HE + BP with R = 2 and true strain ε = 0.47. Note: graphite flakes are texturized in the extrusion direction (along the
ε = 0.69. bottom base of the photograph).
 J. Skiba et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 67–74 73

Fig. 12. Longitudinal microstructure of Bi (99.999% purity) after cold hydrostatic

extrusion with back-pressure HE + BP with the extrusion ratio R = 6.63 and true strain
ε = 1.89.

Fig. 13. An Mo rod (99.9% purity) 5.5 mm in diameter after cold hydrostatic extru-
sion (a) against back-pressure and (b) without back-pressure.
Fig. 10. Structure of GJS500 nodular ferritic-perlitic cast iron after cold hydrostatic
extrusion with back-pressure HE + BP with the extrusion ratio R = 1.61 and true strain
ε = 0.48 (a) transverse and (b) longitudinal cross-section. Note: elongated in the Initial, cast and centreless ground Mo had elongated 1⁄3 mm in
extrusion direction graphite nodules. thickness grains and with a very nonuniform distribution in tran-
verse section (standard deviation of grain size ±147 ␮m). After
hydrostatic extrusion with back-pressure, Mo grains were thinned,
Fig. 10 shows evident longitudinal texturization in extru-
but chiefly in the near-surface zone at the circumference of the
sion direction of the graphite nodules surrounded by the ferrite
extruded product (Fig. 14a) what suggests that the deformation
matrix without any voids or porosity. Confining pressure acting on
proceeded chiefly in its near-surface zone. This supposition was
the extruded product support the material cohesion resulting in
confirmed by observations of the transversely cracked Mo prod-
improved plasticity.
ucts extruded without BP, shown in Fig. 14b, where well-marked
Pure Bi could not be extruded successful without BP. Fig. 11a
shows a rod, 4 mm in diameter and 170 mm long, made of 99.999%
bismuth obtained after hydrostatic extrusion with back-pressure
in which HE pressure was 640 MPa, BP pressure was 498 MPa, and
the extrusion ratio was R = 66.63. In normal condition bismuth has
zero elongation to failure (εf ∼0%) with mechanical strength UTS
∼15 MPa. During the HE + BP process it let be deformed by almost
85% without cracking during a single cold operation (Fig. 11a).
This was impossible without back-pressure, even with 22%
deformation (Fig. 11b). Initial microstructure of Bi had large, mil-
limetre size grains, only few of them at the 10 mm in diameter
billet cross section which after deformation were refined to sub-
millimetre size and texturized in extrusion direction with slip
bands of ∼20 ␮m in thickness, Fig. 12.
Molybdenum with a purity of 99.9% extruded with pBP = 500 MPa
withstood 46% plastic deformation (Fig. 13a), whereas when
extruding without back-pressure, it was impossible to obtain a bulk
product (Fig. 13b).

Fig. 14. Transverse cross-section of a Mo (99.9% purity) rod (a) after cold hydrostatic
extrusion with back-pressure HE + BP with the extrusion ratio R = 1.85 and true strain
Fig. 11. A Bi (99.999% purity) rod, 4 mm in diameter, after cold hydrostatic extrusion ε = 0.62, and (b) the morphology of this rod, cold hydrostatically extruded without
(a) against back-pressure and (b) without back-pressure. back-pressure with R = 1.46 and true strain ε = 0.38.
74 J. Skiba et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 67–74
difference between the way of cracking in the near-surface zone
and within its core is well observed.
The surface of the extruded Mo rod resembled an ‘orange skin’
defect (Fig. 13a) generated due to the hydrostatic compression
applied to the rod at the BP chamber of 500 MPa, i.e. a pressure
higher by almost 30% than the yield point of Mo in compres-
sion  d0.2 = 400 MPa (MatWeb Material Property Data). After one
cold deformation pass with 46% deformation, the compressive
yield point  d0.2 of Mo increased to above 700 MPa and hardness
exceeded the hardness of molybdenum recommended as ‘hard’ by
the manufacturer (Goodfellow On-line Interactive Catalogue).
4. Conclusion
A unique press for hydrostatic extrusion with back-pressure
was designed and constructed. The press operates within the range
of the extrusion pressures up to 2 GPa and back-pressures up to
0.7 GPa. The back-pressure is stabilized with accuracy below ± 1.2%.
The press is equipped with a system of continuous control of the
extrusion speed up to the plunger movement speed of 12 mm/s,
and permits selecting an arbitrary combination of the HE and BP
pressures within the permissible pressure ranges. The BP chamber
enables extruding rods with circular or profiled cross-sections up to
diameters of 7 mm and volumes up to about ∼10 cm3 . The press is
equipped with a control system recording the basic process param-
eters of the complete extrusion cycle, such as the compression and
decompression of the HE and BP chambers, extrusion characteristic,
duration of the process, and extrusion speed.
The press is suitable for applying cold plastic deformation to
the materials which are difficult to deform or unable to be cold
deformed at all, such as the magnesium alloy, grey and nodular
cast irons, bismuth or molybdenum. The materials fabricated using
the HE + BP press had excellent mechanical properties, impossible
to achieve by conventional methods chiefly because these meth-
ods require high temperatures to induce plastic deformation in
discussed materials.
The back-pressure permitted plastic deformation to be induced
in a single cold operation. The achieved percent deformation var-
ied from 36% in grey cast iron through 46% in molybdenum and
53% in nodular cast iron, to above 60% in the ZW3 magnesium alloy
and above 80% in bismuth. The severe plastic deformation resulted
in a significant increase of the strength (to 430 MPa) and the yield
point (to almost 400 MPa) of the ZW3 alloy accompanied by the
high ductility εf = 12.5%. In grey cast iron the compressive strength
increased by 7.5% and the hardness by 13.5%, compared to those of
the starting material. In nodular cast iron, the improvement of the
strength properties was even more spectacular, since its yield point
in compression increased by 50%, compressive strength by almost
40%, and deformation in compression by more than 40%. Its hard-
ness increased by about 40%. In 99.9% molybdenum the achieved
increase of the yield point in compression was by 80% and that of
the hardness by more than 10%. Even in brittle bismuth (99.999%)
the hardness increased by 57%. The improvement of the properties
of these materials was due to the severe plastic deformation which
was only possible under the action of the external compensatory
hydrostatic pressure that increased the ductility of the materials.
Acknowledgements
This work was conducted within the grant No. R15 033 02
awarded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
The authors are grateful to Mr. Konrad Wojciechowski for assis-
tance in high pressure experiments.
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