Abstract
This study explains the effects of lubricant and surface treatment on the life of hot forging dies. The thermal load and thermal softening, that occur when there is contact between the hotter billet and the cooler dies in hot forging, cause wear, thermal cracking and fatigue, and plastic deformation. Because the cooling effect and low friction are essential to the long life of dies, the proper selection of lubricant and surface treatment is very important in hot forging process. The two main factors that decide friction and heat transfer conditions are lubricant and surface treatment, which are directly related to friction factor and surface heat transfer coefficient. Experiments were performed for obtaining the friction factors and the surface heat transfer coefficients in different lubricants and surface treatments. For lubrication, oil-base and water-base graphite lubricants were used, and ion-nitride and carbon-nitride were used as surface treatment conditions. The methods for estimating die service life that are suggested in this study were applied to a finisher die during the hot forging of an automobile part. The new techniques developed in this study for estimating die service life can be used to develop more feasible ways to improve die service life in the hot forging process.