A novel SLM H13 cooling insert for extrusion dies: experimental and numerical investigations

The additive manufacturing technology (AM) is considered to be the forth-industrial revolution allowing to produce «near net» components almost without geometrical constraints. This made the process perfectly fits with the requirement of extrusion dies since usually a maximum of two dies are required and the lack of design constraints allows to easily produce inserts with variable internal cooling channels. In the present work, a multi-die is proposed in which the expensive AM part, the insert with conformal cooling channels, is integrated into a conventional machined steel housing. Two AM inserts have been manufactured with SLM technology with different cooling channels diameters. Complex Finite Element (FE) simulations of the extrusion process have been performed by means of different FE codes in order to properly predict the thermal field gradient, the die stresses under the process thermomechanical loads and the multistate fluid dynamics. Preliminary results of the experimental trials of the insert are also presented in the present work.