Journal of Materials Processing Technology 80 – 81 (1998) 156 – 160

Cold forging of high strength aluminum alloys and the

development of new thermomechanical processing
Ola Jensrud a,*, Ketill Pedersen b
a
Raufoss Technology AS, Department of Materials Technology, Box 77, N-2831 Raufoss, Norway
b
SINTEF Materials Technology, Norway

Abstract

Cold forging is a process suitable for manufacturing low-cost and high quality automotive components in high strength
aluminium alloys. This method is particularly suitable for parts with narrow geometrical tolerances, good concentricity, smooth
surface finish and for near net shape products. However, an increasing request for producing components at a lower cost requires
even more economical production processes. Forming in the warm condition is an alternative process that has the advantages of
producing rather complicated geometrical shapes in less operation steps compared to cold forming. In addition, warm forming at
moderate temperatures has all the benefits of cold forming including good control of the microstructure and thereby improved
strength and ductility. © 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Warm forming; AlMgSi alloy; Compression testing; Backward forging

1. Background aluminium alloys. Warm forging of steel typically oc-

1.1. Cold forging
Cold forging is a production process often used when
forming tubular components in high strength alu-
minium alloys where high concentricity and close toler-
ances are required [1]. Very often, the forming is carried
out by a combination of forward and backward cold
forging. If the geometry is complex, several severe
forming operations follow one another that also in-
volves intermediate soft annealing and lubrication. This
often requires an interruption of the production line
that is both time-consuming and expensive (Fig. 1(a)).
A new alternative production process is therefore
developed [2,3]. The forging is accomplished at moder-
ate temperatures where it is possible to form rather
complicated geometrical shapes in less forming opera-
tions without leaving the production line to soft-anneal
and re-lubricate the workpiece (Fig. 1(b)).
Several papers have been published on cold forging,
warm forging and a combination of the two methods in
steel [4–6] in the past 10 years. However, less work has
been accomplished on warm forging of age pardonable
* Corresponding author.
curs in the temperature range from 750 to 850°C de-
pending on the material and the main purpose is to
lower the yield stress and increase the formability. Age
pardonable aluminium alloys can be heat-treated to
reduce the yield stress. However, soft annealing is both
time-consuming and expensive. The motivation for
forming of AlMgSi alloys in warm condition is there-
fore somewhat different from steel and the main pur-
pose is to reduce the number of heat-treatment steps.
Attention should however be given to the fact that the
hardening mechanisms in age-pardonable aluminium
alloys are complicated and will be a combination of
deformation hardening and precipitation hardening.
1.2. Research objecti6es
The main objectives in this investigation have there-
fore been to compare the process parameters in an
alternative and more cost-effective process (warm forg-
ing) with the parameters used in the present process
(cold forging). An important issue is that the flow stress
during forming is equal or less than in the present
process and that the mechanical properties in the final
products are approximately the same as in the existing
process.

0924-0136/98/$19.00 © 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.

PII S0924-0136(98)00219-2
 O. Jensrud, K. Pedersen / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 80–81 (1998) 156–160
Fig. 1. A sketch of the different forging processes. (A) Cold forging of material in O temper and (B) warm forging of material in W temper.
2. Material behaviour
The material used in this investigation is an AA6082
alloy that has been extruded from a billet with a
diameter of 29 to a diameter of 178 mm. The casting
and extrusion are performed by normal industrial pro-
cedures. The alloy has been homogenised to give a high
density of dispersoids to prevent recrystallization dur-
ing extrusion. An extrusion bar with a non-recrystal-
lized fibrous grain structure and a fine subgrain
structure is thereby achieved. The nominal composition
of the material is given in Table 1.
The typical mechanical properties are also tabulated
in Table 2. However, by obtaining proper heat treat-
ment and quenching before ageing, it is possible to
increase the values by 10%.
Material from 6xxx series ages naturally during stor-
ing at room temperature. In industrial practice, it will
always take from several hours to weeks from when the
extrusion is accomplished to the forming being out.
During this period, the material ages naturally and the
hardness of the material increases causing a reduction
in formability. Therefore, before forging in cold condi-
tion, the material has to be annealed below solvus
temperature to develop a soft material and a stable
particle structure that will not give any increase in the
strength of the material during room temperature stor-
ing. The annealing (O temper) is time-consuming and
expensive, however, it has the advantage of making the
material soft, stable and easy to form.
Forming high strength aluminium alloys in as ex-
truded and water quenched condition (W temper) re-
Table 1
The chemical composition in weight percentages
Alloy Si Fe Mn Mg Al
AA6082 1.00 0.20 0.60 0.65 Bal
157
quires either a very short storing period at room
temperature or a new solution heat treatment immedi-
ately before forming. In both cases, the material is
unstable and unpredictable concerning the forging load
and the final mechanical properties.
Forming at an elevated temperature is an alternative
method that combines a reduction in load with the
ability to age harden the final component to the spe-
cified properties. Even though the material will remain
unstable, experiments indicate that the process gives
repeatable results. The period between water quenching
and forming is also found to be of less importance.
However, the time and temperature where the forming
is carried out is critical. If the material is kept too long
at a high forming temperature, a reduction in the
ageing potential after forming will be obtained and it
will not be possible to reach the required mechanical
properties without subsequent solution heat treatment.
On the contrary, a low forging temperature results in
loads beyond the capacity of the forming equipment.
Therefore, it is necessary to establish forming parame-
ters that fulfil both the load requirements and a reason-
able hardening potential for subsequent ageing.
3. Compression testing
Compression tests have been carried out to establish
sufficient process parameters for forging at elevated
temperatures. Samples with a diameter of 10 mm and a
height of 15 mm have been deformed at temperatures
ranging from 200 to 300°C in an servohydraulic 880
Table 2
Typical mechanical properties for T6 condition
Alloy s0.2 su ef VHN10
AA6082 300 MPa 340 MPa 12% 115
158 O. Jensrud, K. Pedersen / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 80–81 (1998) 156–160
Fig. 2. True stress – strain curves for compression of AA6082 at
elevated temperatures. The broad line is O temper.
MTS. testing machine. An environment chamber was
used for heating the equipment to the actual forming
temperature. A testing procedure is designed that uses
parameters near to industrial practise. The procedure is
implemented into the computer system of the testing
machine. Each test could then be repeated easily and
the results from identical samples show good correla-
tion. The samples were heated to elevated temperatures,
quenched in water immediately after deformation to
prevent any further precipitation and stored at room
temperature for a short period before ageing. The entire
thermomechanical sequence from heating to water-
cooling took  1 min.
Fig. 2 shows the variations in the compression yield
curves for increasing temperatures. The yield stress at a
compression strain of 1 is reduced from 200 to 100
MPa, when the temperature increases from 225 to
300°C. The broad line represents the stress – strain curve
for soft annealed material deformed at room tempera-
ture (O-temper). The true stress – strain curves for mate-
rial deformed at moderate temperatures seem to level
out to a greater extent than the cold-formed material.
This reduction in work hardening is more easily shown
Fig. 3. Work hardening (ds/do) versus strain curves for compression
of AA6082 at elevated temperatures. The broad line is O temper.
Fig. 4. Hardness curves after deformation at 225 and 300°C, respec-
tively, to different strains 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.1 and subsequent ageing at
175°C.
in the work hardening curves in Fig. 3. The observed
reduction in work hardening with temperature could be
due to recovery taking place at elevated temperatures.
Any recovery occurring during forming will increase the
formability and reduce the number of forming steps.
However, to gain full advantage of the recovery, one
may have to form at temperatures where precipitation
also takes place. If the temperature is too high, the
particles being precipitated will be the non-coherent
equilibrium phase which is too large to give any
strengthening effect in the final product. The alloying
elements used for age hardening are then being de-
pleted. Therefore, an optimum temperature has to be
chosen to satisfy both requirements.
Fig. 4 indicates that the forming temperature should
be close to 225 rather than 300°C. For material de-
formed at 300°C, the obtainable hardness after ageing
is only half of that observed for material deformed at
225°C. Deformed material obtains strength from pre-
cipitation of coherent particles and during forming
from accumulation of dislocations. However, at small
compression strains, the precipitation hardening domi-
nates, while at large strains the deformation hardening
is the main source for strengthening. At moderate
strains, the strength will be determined by a combina-
tion of both mechanisms.
4. Forming of tubes
4.1. Method
In order to verify the practical use of the forming
procedures established by compression testing, back-
ward forging of tubes with an outer diameter of 29 mm
and wall thickness of 1 mm have been chosen. This is a
generic component with a large surface expansion, i.e.
new surface area divided by original surface area. A
schematic sketch of the tool set-up is shown in Fig. 5.
 O. Jensrud, K. Pedersen / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 80–81 (1998) 156–160
The container is equipped with three heating elements
mounted in a circle to ensure a constant temperature of
the tooling. The workpiece was heated in an induction
furnace and the punch was heated to the correct tem-
perature by moving the punch to the bottom of the
container to obtain contact between the piston and the
heated container. The time and temperature cycles were
tuned to correspond to what is achievable in industrial
practise. The equipment is installed in an 800 ton
hydraulic press. To obtain precise measurements, the
press is equipped with a high accuracy external load cell
and an external sensor for measuring displacement. In
addition, a labtech-notebook data acquisition system
was used for collecting and calculating forging load,
ram position and ram speed. The workpieces were
lubricated using calciumaluminat/sodiumstearate. The
lubrication of the workpieces was carried out in a
commercial production line.
4.2. Experimental results
Fig. 6 shows the forging load versus the ram position
for cold forging and warm forging of tubes using the
same alloys as described above. Material which is cold
forged has been soft annealed before forming (O-tem-
per), while the material forged at elevated temperatures
is formed in condition as extruded and water quenched
at the press (W-temper). The curves represent load
versus ram position when forming cups with a height of
200 and 250 mm, respectively. The heights correspond
to an expansion in surface area of 29 and 32 times
the original surface area. It was possible to achieve
expansion above what is reported here. However, when
the height of the tubes exceed 200 mm, an opening
which was too short between the upper and lower die in
the laboratory press made it impossible to remove the
Fig. 5. Schematic draws of the tool set-up for backward forging.
159
Fig. 6. Force vs. ram position for backward extrusion of tubes with
an outer diameter of 29 mm and wall thickness of 1 mm.
tubes from the punch without dismantling the
equipment.
The two curves shown in Fig. 6 show the same
tendency as for the compression test. By choosing
proper forming parameters, even a reduction in forging
load is obtained. Material formed at room temperature
also experiences a peak load at the beginning of the
test. This peak seems to be lacking when forming at
elevated temperatures. The ram rates for all of the tests
were set to 20 mm s − 1. This is a high deformation rate
and will result in an increase in temperature of the
workpiece during forming.
5. Discussion
The cold forging of the AA6082 alloy requires soft
annealing of the material to obtain sufficient formabil-
ity at loads that are achievable in regular forging
equipment. Soft annealing is both time-consuming and
expensive. In addition, stable particles which are too
coarse to give any increase in the mechanical properties
of the final product are formed during soft annealing.
Therefore, the material has to be solution heat treated
after cold forming to recrystallize the material and
dissolve the coarser particles. Subsequent artificially
ageing in the temperature range from 150 to 200°C will
form hardening precipitates and give the material the
specified mechanical properties.
However, by forging at elevated temperatures, ex-
truded billets having the specified dimension can be
forged without any further heat treatments. This means
that the forging temperature is high enough to bring
most of the elements that have precipitated at room
temperature and caused an increase in strength, into
solid solution. Storing material of age pardonable al-
loys at room temperature will always result in a certain
increase in yield strength. As can be seen from the
160 O. Jensrud, K. Pedersen / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 80–81 (1998) 156–160
Fig. 7. The Vickers hardness versus strain after deformation and after
deformation and subsequent ageing at 225°C for 30 min.
compression test and the following hardness curves, the
temperature used for forging in this experiment is suffi-
ciently high to fulfil the hardness requirement and even
reduce the forging yield stress compared to cold forg-
ing. Also, the work hardening is reduced when forging
at elevated temperature. However, some work harden-
ing may be beneficial to avoid local strain instability.
The reduction in load is also verified by the load versus
ram position curves for tube forming, which in this
experiment even shows a 20% reduction in forging load.
Even though cold forging means that the workpiece
is inserted into the container in a cold condition, the
temperature can locally increase due to the conversion
of deformation work into heat. An increase of several
hundred degrees can sometimes be obtained depending
on the punch rate and the geometry of the final
product. What is commonly called cold forging is actu-
ally forming with a certain increase in temperature
during the forging process. However, due to the subse-
quent solution heat treatment, the increase in tempera-
ture during forging will have little effect on the
.
mechanical properties of the product.
When forging at elevated temperatures, the material
will be exposed to higher temperature. The compression
tests indicate that the forging cycle chosen will not
effect the final hardness of the material, even though
one must expect a certain increase in forging tempera-
ture during deformation in the latter case also.
Forging at elevated temperatures creates a deforma-
tion structure, which influences the subsequent precipi-
tation. At medium strains, the response to ageing is still
present, even though maximum hardness is reached
after a comparatively short annealing time (Fig. 7).
The strength obtained is a combination of work
hardening and precipitation hardening. At higher
strains, beyond 0.5, only a small effect of ageing and
saturation hardness seems to be reached. The maximum
hardness is the same at low strains as at high strains
and the short ageing time used in this investigation does
not overage the material at any stages. However, the
effect of forming followed by precipitation ageing on
fracture toughness and ductility has to be investigated.
6. Conclusions
The principal basis for a cost-effective warm forging
production line is established. The experiments show
that by using a forging temperature of  250°C, a
reduction in forging load is obtained without any re-
duction in hardness of the final product.
References
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minum 67 (1992) 442 – 446.
[2] O. Jensrud, Warm deformation and the age hardening response
in two aluminium alloys. Proc. NATO ASI Advanced Light
Alloys and Composites, Zakopane, Poland, 1997.
[3] T. Welo, S.R. Skjervold, O. Jensrud, K. Pedersen, Cold forging
and grain size control in an Al-1.2wt%Si alloy. Metal. Forming,
Krakow, 1992.
[4] M. Hirsschvogel, H.v. Dommelen, Some application of cold and
warm forging, J. Mater. Process. Technol. 35 (3 – 4) 1992.
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1992.
[6] S. Sheljaskov, Current level of development of warm forging
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