CHARACTERISTICS OF FORGING PRESSES: DETERMINATION AND COMPARISON

by

J. R. DOUGLAS* and T. ALTAN*

SUMMARY
This study discusses the important characteristics of forging presses and describes methods for determining them. A 700 ton
hydraulic press, a newly installed 500 ton mechanical press of scotch yoke design, and a 400 ton screw press were used in the
study. In all three presses high-temperature ring-compression tests were used to determine the practical effect of press speed on die
chilling, metalflow and load requirements. In the mechanical press, room temperature copper upset tests were employed to deter-
mine the dynamic press stiffness, the offcentre loading ability, the flatness of ram and bolster surfaces under load and the
available enetgy capacity at various production rates.
The methods used in the present study can be applied for the evaluation, comparison and standardisation of forging presses
under practical production conditions.

INTRODUCIION
The purchase of new forging equipment, and the
efficient use of various types of existing equipment,
require a thorough understanding of the effect of
equipment characteristics on the forging operations,
of load and energy requirements for the specific
forging operation and of the capabilities and charac-
teristics of the specific forging machine used for that
operation. Today the trend is to install presses,
especially mechanical or screw presses, instead of
hammers, except for very large capacities. The
hammer, although it is the least expensive forging
machine, has several disadvantages such as limited
accuracy, noise pollution and difficulty in automa-
tion. The mechanical forging press is most effectively
used for large production series in which required
tool changes and setups are infrequent. The screw
press competes with hammers and with mechanical
presses, especially in forging relatively thin parts
with great accuracy. Hydraulic presses are used
mostly for open-die forging. For closed-die forging
operations, the hydraulic press is in general too slow,
gives long contact times and causes die chilling.
Consequently, the hydraulic press is only practical
for forging aluminium and magnesium alloys, where
no die chilling is present, and for forging very large
parts requiring forging loads above 6000 or 8000
tons.
The principal process and equipment variables and
their interactions in hot forging under presses are
shown schematically in figure I, where a line between
two blocks indicates that one variable influences the
other 1• 2 . As seen on the left-hand side of figure I,
the flowstress a, the interface friction conditions and
the forging geometry (dimensions, shape) determine
both the load Lp at each position of the stroke and

J!rocess vorrobles ~q~J!ment vorrobles

- - - - - - - - - - - t s l i d e velocity vP

stiffness c

clearances,
flatness ond
porollellty

requ•red
lood lp forgmg
energy ep tolerences
strokes /m1n np
(under lood)

Figure 1. Relationships between process and equipment variables in closed-die forging in presses 1•

*Metalworking Division. Battelle Columbus Laboratories, Columbus, Ohio, USA.

S. A. Tobias et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Machine Tool Design and Research Conference
© Macmillan Publishers Limited 1973
536 CHARACfERISTICS OF FORGING PRESSES: DETERMINATION AND COMPARISON
the energy Ep required by the forging process. The
flowstress a increases with increasing deformation
rate t and with decreasing temperature 8. The magni-
tude of these variations depends on the specific
forging material. The friction at the tool material
interface increases with increased die chilling.
As indicated by the lines connected to the
temperature block, for a given initial stock tempera-
ture, the temperature variations in the forging are
largely influenced by the surface area of contact
between dies and forging, the part thickness of
volume, die temperature, the amount of heat gener-
ated by deformation and friction, and the contact
time under pressure. During deformation, the heat
transfer from the hot forging to the colder dies is
nearly perfect with graphite-base lubricants. With
glass-base lubricants, however, the heat transfer is
greatly reduced, depending on the interface tempera-
ture and the thickness and type of glass coating.
The velocity of the slide under pressure Vp deter-
mines mainly the contact time under pressure tp and
the deformation rate €. The number of strokes per
minute no under no load conditions, the machine
energy EM and the deformation energy Ep required
by the process influence the slide velocity under load
Vp and the number of strokes np under load: np
determines the maximum number of parts forged per
minute (that is the production rate) provided the
feeding and unloading of the machine can be carried
out at that speed.
As indicated in figure 1, the stiffness of the press
influences the contact time under pressure. The stiff-
ness also influences the thickness tolerance of forged
parts in mechanical press forging, where usually the
upper and lower dies do not touch or kiss during a
forging stroke. In hydraulic and screw presses, the
stiffness does not affect forging tolerances. The flat-
ness and parallelity of upper and lower die surfaces
determine the degree of skewness and mismatch in
the forged part. Therefore, these characteristics too
are important for evaluating the overall performance
of a forging press.
SIGNIFICANT CHARACTERISTICS OF FORGING
PRESSES
Characteristics of a machine consist of all design and
performance data on that machine pertinent to its
economical use 3 . These data are necessary for an
optimum selection of equipment for a given opera-
tion. The characteristic data for forging presses can be
divided into three groups 3 • 4 ; data for load and energy,
data that are time-dependent and data for accuracy.
Otaracteristic data for load and energy
Available energy EM is the energy supplied by the
machine for carrying out the deformation but does
not include the energy necessary to overcome fric-
tional, inertial and deflection losses. The available load
LM is the load available at the ram to carry out the
deformation process. The following conditions must
be satisfied to complete a forging operation 1 ' 2 :
the available machine load LM > the load required
by the process Lp at any time during the working
stroke and the available machine energy EM > the
energy required by the process Ep for an entire
stroke.
Tune-dependent characteristic data
The number of strokes per minutes under pressure np
is the most important characteristic of any machint
since it determines the production rate. The contact
time under pressure tp determines the heat transfer
between the hotter forged part and the cooler dies,
and greatly influences the flowstress of the forged
material and the die wear.
The velocity under pressure Vp, determines the
contact time under pressure and the rate of deforma-
tion or the strain-rate. Thus, it influences the flow
stress of the forged material and affects the load and
energy requirements.
Otaracteristic data for accuracy
For unloaded machine conditions, the stationary
surfaces and their relative positions are established by
clearance in the gibs, parallelism of upper and lower
beds, flatness of upper and lower beds, perpen-
dicularity of slide motion with respect to lower
bed, and concentricity of tool holders 3 • All these
machine characteristics affect the tolerances in the
forged part. Much more significant however are
the quantities obtained under load and under dynamic
conditions.
The stiffness of a press C (the ratio of load to the
total elastic deflection between upper and lower dies)
influences the energy lost in press deflection, the
velocity versus time curve under load and the contact
time. In mechanical presses, variations in forging
thickness, due to volume or temperature changes in
the stock, are also smaller in a stiffer press.
Very often the stiffness of a press (ton/in) is
measured under static loading conditions, but such
measurements are misleading: for practical use the
stiffness of a press must be determined under dynamic
loading conditions.
DESCRIPTION OF EXPERIMENTAL WORK,
EQUIPMENT AND INSTRUMENTATION
The purpose of the present study is to develop test
methods and to demonstrate their application in order
to determine the most significant characteristics of
forging presses. These tests must be practical and
relatively simple so that they can be conducted
easily by the press manufacturers as well as by the
press users in a forge shop.
Three different presses used in the experimentation
are a 700 ton hydraulic press and a 500 ton mechani-
cal press with scotch yoke design installed at the
Metalworking Laboratory of Battelle's Columbus
Laboratories, and a 400 ton production screw press
in the Brave, Pennsylvania, plant of the Accurate
Brass Corporation.
The following significant press characteristics were
evaluated for these three presses: