Cold Forming

Burnishing Coining Cold Forging Cold Rolling Hubbing Impact Extrusion Peening Sizing Swaging Thread Rolling

Burnishing
Introduction Burnishing is a process by which a smooth hard tool (using sufficient pressure) is rubbed on the metal surface. This process flattens the high spots by causing plastic flow of the metal.The edges of sheet metal can be smoothed out by pushing the sheet metal through a die that will exert a compressive force to smooth out the blanked edge and the burrs caused by the die break. Roller Burnishing improves the finish and size of surfaces of revolution such as cylinders and conical surfaces. Both internal and external surfaces can be burnished using an appropriate tool. Burnishing improves the surface finish, surface hardness, wear-resistance, fatigue and corrosion resistance.

Coining
Introduction Coining is the squeezing of metal while it is confined in a closed set of dies. A workpiece is placed a confined die. A movable punch is located within the die. The action of this punch cold works the material and can form intricate features.

This process is used to produce coins, medallions and other similar products on flat stock with relief features. Very fine detail can be reproduced. Pressures as high as 1375 MPa (200,000 psi) is required to generate very fine features.

Cold Forging
Introduction Cold Forging is a cold working process where the material is squeezed into a die and the finished parts assume the shape of the die. This process is also known as Cold Heading. Bar stock or wire stock is fed into a die and is squeezed into the closed die. The resultant part is a nail, a bolt or a screw with the head. A subsequent cold heading operation forms other features on the head such as knurls or slots for screw drivers etc. the shaping rod stock by forming the head as in rivets, bolts, nails and other fasteners. This process can be highly automated and parts can be made economically.

Cold Rolling
Introduction Cold rolling is a process by which the sheet metal or strip stock is introduced between rollers and then compressed and squeezed. The amount of strain introduced determines the hardness and other material properties of the finished product. The advantages of cold rolling are good dimensional accuracy and surface finish.

Cold rolled sheet can be produced in various conditions such as skin-rolled, quarter hard, half hard, full hard depending on how much cold work has been performed. This cold working (hardness) is often called temper, although this has nothing to do with heat treatment temper. In skin rolling, the metal is reduced by 0.5 to 1% and results in a surface that is smooth and the yield point phenomenon--excessive stretching and wrinkling in subsequent operations, is eliminated. This makes the metal more ductile for further forming and stretching operations. Quarter Hard, Half Hard, Full Hard stock have higher amounts of reduction, upto 50%. This increases the yield point; grain orientation and material properties assume different properties along the grain orientation. However, while the yield point increases, ductility decreases. Quarter Hard material can be bent (perpendicular to the direction of rolling) on itself without fracturing. Half hard material can be bent 90; full hard can be bent 45. Thus, these materials can be used for in applications involving great amounts of bending and deformation, without fracturing.

Hubbing
Introduction Hubbing is a process to make recessed cavities in female tooling dies. The process begins with a male tool, the hub, which is made with the desired profile then hardened. The hub is then slowly pressed (using hydraulic force) into the desired tooling cavity hole to reproduce the inverse of the profiles. The metal displaced from the cavity is removed by machining; using a fly cutter on a milling machine or grinding it on a surface grinder. This is a good alternative to the conventional die sinking process where the female tool cavity is machined. In hubbing, the male tool is machined and external machining is easier than internal machining. This is often used to produce plastic extrusion dies economically.

Impact Extrusion
Introduction

Impact Extrusion is commonly used to make collapsible tubes such as toothpaste tubes, cans usually using soft materials such as aluminum, lead, tin. Usually a small shot of solid material is placed in the die and is impacted by a ram, which causes cold flow in the

material.
Hydrostatic extrusion is a form of impact extrusion, uses a fluid hydrostatic pressure instead of a mechanical ram. This is useful for making parts out of materials such as Molybdenum, Tungsten that are relatively hard to extrude using normal extrusion methods.

Peening
Introduction Cold working can improve or alter the surfaces of metal products. Peening is a cold working process where the surface of the metal is blasted by shot pellets. This induces compressive stress in the region just below the skin to compensate for the stretching of the skin. When a tensile load is applied on this residual compressed load, the net effect is a reduced amount of stress on the part. This makes the metal well suited for fatigue applications which involve cyclic loads-such as gears, crankshafts etc. Most weldment surfaces are under tension due to shrinkage after being exposed to welding heat. Peening can reduce tensile stress by inducing compressive stress on the part. In this type of application, peening is done by using hammers.

Sizing
Introduction Sizing is the squeezing of a specific area of a ductile casting, a forging, or a powder metallurgy to bring it to the desired thickness. This allows the use of lower cost processes and yet achieve the tolerances that may be needed on a part. This is useful for areas such as bosses, flanges and similar parts that need to be of a certain specified thickness.

Swaging
Introduction Swaging is a process that is used to reduce or increase the diameter of tubes and/or rods. This is done by placing the tube or rod inside a die that applies compressive force by hammering radially. This can be further expanded by placing a mandrel inside the tube and applying radial compressive forces on the outer diameter. Thus, the inner diameter can be a different shape, for example a hexagon, and the outer is still circular.

Thread Rolling
Introduction Thread Rolling process is used for making external threads. A die, which is a hardened tool with the thread profile, is pressed on to a rotating work piece. As the force is gradually increased, the thread profile is transferred to the work piece. This process produces screws with greater strength than machined threads due to the cold working, as well as better material yield.