Reduction of Thermally Induced Wear on a Forging Tool by Heatpipes

During forging, tool wear occurs as a result of thermomechanical stress. In addition, the deterioration of material behavior due to an overheated surface zone leads to reduced tool service life resulting in higher production costs. Heatpipes can be used to dissipate heat from the loaded tool surface area and thus optimize the material behavior of the tool. The performance of this method is strongly influenced by the heat conductivity between tool and heatpipe. To evaluate this novel method, the influence of the force-fit connection between heatpipe and tool on the thermal load is investigated during a forging process. In addition, the influence of the connection surface finish has been investigated by varying the roughness of the contact surface. Reference tools without heatpipes and with loose connection of the heatpipes were used for comparison. All tools were tested with 1,000 strokes in a fully automated forging process. The die temperatures were recorded to evaluate the resulting wear behavior of the tools. Based on the tests, reduced wear was observed using the heatpipes applied.