Computer aided design of extrusion dies for complex geometry profiles

Abstract

The inherent design freedom promoted by the employment of thermoplastic profiles is one of the major reasons for their attractiveness. Theoretically, thermoplastic profiles can be produced with any cross section suited for a specific application. The design of the corresponding extrusion dies usually employ a methodology based on experimental trial-and-error approaches, being highly dependent on the experience of the designer and highly demanding in terms of resources. These difficulties are obviously more evident when the plastic profile has a complex geometry. This research team is involved since the mid-nineties on the development of computational tools to aid the design of thermoplastic profile extrusion dies. Initially, the numerical code employed was based on structured meshes that limited its use to simple geometries. In this work, a numerical modelling code developed to work with unstructured meshes is described and employed in a case study involving the design of a extrusion die for the production of complex cross section profile. The results obtained show that the developed code can be a useful tool to aid the design of complex profile extrusion dies.