THE PHENOMENON OF DURABILITY VARIABLE DIES FOR ALUMINUM EXTRUSION PROFILES

Extrusion dies are usually regenerated several times (min 4 times). The phenomenon of extended life after each regenerative nitriding process has not been explained. In this work, the regeneration process of dies used in the extrusion of aluminium profiles has been presented. In the article, it was sought to explain the cause of increased die durability after the third or fourth nitriding. Also in this work is presented an analysis of the influence of the parameters of gas nitriding with the ZeroFlow method on hardness of dies. Results were verified under industrial conditions at extrusion company, comparing the durability of the dies nitrided with the ZeroFlow method with so-far-used dies nitrided in the commercial way. An increase of the dies durability was achieved after a single ZeroFlow nitriding.