Forging Equipment

Forging equipment uses compressive force to shape metal by plastic deformation. Often, dies are used. There are many types of forging equipment. Choices include drop hammers, counterblow machines, rolling forming equipment, and upsetting equipment. Machinery for cold forging, hot forging, warm forging, and rotary forging is also available. Metal parts that are made with forging machines include hollow axle shafts, half-hollow transmission shafts, flanged axles, and power steering gear racks.

Forging equipment is used to produce both hot forged and cold forged metal parts. Cold forging shapes cold metal by using a punch to strike a slug in a closed cavity. These slugs are annealed and then shot blasted, pickled, and soaped to promote lubricity and metal flow. With cold forging, the metal is forced up and around the punch in a process known as cold extrusion, cold pressing, extrusion pressing, or impact impressing. Hot forging forms metal parts by forcing hot metal into dies under pressure. The part shaping is performed at temperatures above the metal’s recrystallization temperature. Hot forging uses lighter presses than cold pressing.

Forging equipment for warm forging, and for a combination of warm and cold forging, is commonly available. Typically, warm forcing is performed at temperatures that range from 650 C to 850 C. Constant-volume raw materials are sometimes machined to size and then used with trapped die forging methods. With warm forging, accurate dies and proper tooling alignment are critical. Some parts, such as gear forging with on-size forged gear teeth, are produced by a combination of warm and cold forging. Because of the high loads in cold forging, the tooling for such forging equipment must be able to support the working parts of the dies. Cold forgings have higher tensile properties, but subsequent heat-treatment alters these characteristics.

Radial forging machines can hot form specialty steels into a variety shapes. They are also used to cold form parts for the automotive, truck, and off-road vehicle industries. Radial forging equipment may include a CNC system to allow engineers and operators to control size and shape of machined surfaces. Even small radial forging machines can achieve a forging force of 180,000 lbs to reduce thick-walled tubes to shapes such as rifle barrels with chambers. Larger forging equipment is used in the auto industry to produce components such as valves for power steering modules. Other applications range from prototyping to low or high-volume production.

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