The primary purpose of this article is to describe general root causes of failure that are associated with wrought metals and metalworking. This includes a brief review of the discontinuities or imperfections that may be common sources of failure-inducing defects in the bulk working of wrought products. The article addresses the types of flaws or defects that can be introduced during the steel forging process itself, including defects originating in the ingot-casting process. Defects found in nonferrous forgings—titanium, aluminum, and copper and copper alloys—also are covered.

This datasheet provides information on composition limits, fabrication characteristics, processing effects on physical and mechanical properties, and application performance of thick plate and forging alloy 7085. It presents the specified minimum strength and fracture properties for plate, die, and hand forgings. The datasheet provides a comparison of the strength, fracture toughness, and fatigue crack growth resistance of alloy 7085 plate with those of the legacy plate alloy 7050. It shows tensile yield and ultimate strength at elevated temperature for various temperatures and exposure times for 7085-T7452 die forgings.

This datasheet provides information on composition limits, key metallurgy, fabrication characteristics, processing effects on physical, tensile, and creep-rupture properties, and applications of Al-Cu-Mg-Ni alloys 2618 and 2618A. The influence of prolonged holding at elevated temperature on tensile properties and the influence of temperature on compressive yield strength of alloy 2618-T61 hand-forged billets are illustrated.

Alloy 2040 is a forging alloy with a significant improvement in elevated temperature properties over alloys 2014 and 2219. This datasheet provides information on composition limits of 2040 and provides a comparison of design mechanical properties of 2040 and 2014.

This datasheet provides information on composition limits, fabrication characteristics, processing effects on physical and tensile properties, and applications of aluminum forging alloy 6151. Tensile property limits for aluminum alloy 6151 is also provided.

This datasheet provides information on composition limits, processing effects on physical and mechanical properties, and fabrication characteristics of high-strength forging alloy 7076.

This article examines aluminum forging processes, including open-die, closed-die, upset, roll, orbital, spin, and mandrel forging, and compares and contrasts their capabilities and the associated design requirements for forged parts. It discusses the effect of key process variables such as workpiece and die temperature, strain rate, and deformation mode. The article describes the relative forgeability of the ten most widely used aluminum alloys, and reviews common forging equipment, including hammers, mechanical and screw presses, and hydraulic presses. It also discusses postforge operations such as trimming, forming, repairing, cleaning, and heat treatment.

Aluminum powders can be formed into components by several competing technologies, including powder metallurgy (PM), metal injection molding, powder forging, and additive manufacturing. This article explores PM methodologies that are being exploited to manufacture such components. It reviews emerging technologies that promise to offer exciting ways to produce aluminum parts. The article discusses the various steps involved in PM, such as powder production, compaction, sintering, repressing, and heat treatment. It provides information on aluminum production statistics and the wear-resistance applications of PM.

This article describes friction force as a function of normal force in dry forming. It focuses on metal forming operations usually classified as cold working and hot working based on metallurgical considerations. The article discusses surface flattening and roughening of workpiece asperities in metal forming. It presents advanced tribology models and results for friction in isothermal forging operations in which the tooling is maintained at a temperature close to that of the workpiece. The article provides information on heat transfer models. It discusses the effect of wear in manufacturing processes. The article concludes with information on the main categories of tool and die materials used for a variety of manufacturing application.

Both hot and cold forgings are batch-type processes in which steady-state conditions are never fully achieved and the initial lubricant supply must perform adequately for the duration of the operation. This article discusses methods to measure lubricant effectiveness and wear. It describes the mixed-film lubrication and solid film lubrication in cold forging, as well as solid film lubrication and thick film lubrication in hot forging. The article reviews the factors affecting abrasive wear: die hardness, workpiece temperature, and lubrication and die temperature. It concludes with information on ways to improve resistance to abrasive wear.

The organizations that are most active in the development of standards for powder metallurgy (PM) are the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), Metal Powder Industries Federation (MPIF), and International Standards Organization (ISO). This article presents the test method standards, materials standards, and material designation codes for PM materials. It provides information on the codes for structural parts, PM soft magnetic materials, PM self-lubricating bearings, metal injection molded materials, and powder forged materials.

Milling of materials, whether hard and brittle or soft and ductile, is of prime interest and of economic importance to the powder metallurgy (PM) industry. This article discusses the principles of milling, milling parameters, and the powder characteristics required for the process. It discusses the changes in powder particle morphology that occur during milling of metal powders produced by various processes such as microforging, fracturing, agglomeration, and deagglomeration. The article also provides useful information on milling equipment such as tumbler ball mills, vibratory ball mills, attrition mills, and hammer and rod mills.

Successful application of forging and hot pressing involves careful consideration of powder preparation and forming process parameters. This article describes the important process features for powder forging and hot pressing, along with specific applications and materials used.

Sintering is a thermal treatment process in which a powder or a porous material, already formed into the required shape, is converted into a useful article with the requisite microstructure. Sintering can be classified as solid-state, viscous, liquid-phase, and pressure-assisted (or pressure) sintering. This article provides information on the mechanisms and theoretical analysis of sintering and focuses on the types, mechanisms, process and microstructural variables, computer simulation, stages, and fundamentals of densification and grain growth of solid-state sintering and liquid-phase sintering. It describes the models for viscous sintering and the methods used in pressure-assisted sintering, namely, uniaxial hot pressing, hot isostatic pressing, sinter forging, and spark plasma sintering.

Powder forging is a process in which unsintered, presintered, and sintered powder metallurgy preforms are hot formed in confined dies. This article provides information on the basic forms of powder forging and describes the material considerations, process considerations, and mechanical properties of powder forged (PF) steels. It reviews the parameters involved in quality assurance tests for PF parts. The article includes examples of PF components and highlights the reasons for selecting them over those made by competing forming methods.

Powder metallurgy (PM) processes include press and sinter hardening, metal injection molding, powder forging, hot isostatic pressing, powder rolling, and spray forming. This article provides an overview of PM processing methods and general considerations of heat treatment of PM parts that are case-hardened to obtain higher hardness, wear, fatigue, and impact properties. It describes the effects of porosity on heat treatment, alloy content on PM hardenability, and starting material on homogenization of PM steels. The article describes the properties, following heat treatment, of low-alloy steels tempered at 175 ºC for one hour, and lists recommended quench and temper parameters to achieve good wear resistance and core strength based on different ranges of porosity.

This article provides general information on the definition, purposes, and quench equipment for direct-forge quenching (DFQ) and direct heat treatment (DHT) processes that are widely used in automotive and various other mechanical industries. It discusses the technological advances in these processes and their ability to produce high-quality components at low production cost from microalloyed steels. Further, the article describes the influence of carbon contents on toughness of microalloyed direct heat treated steels. It focuses on the DFQ and DHT steel technologies applied in continuous rolling mills to produce various DHT steels for machining and cold forming applications.

The warm and hot working of metals provide the ability to shape important materials into component shapes that are useful in a variety of applications requiring strength, toughness, and ductility. This article focuses on a variety of metals that can be hot or warm worked, and describes the characteristics and processing considerations of each metal. It discusses forging because it is a versatile metalworking process and performed at cold, warm, and hot working temperatures. The article also presents the applications of steels, stainless steels, aluminum alloys, titanium alloys, superalloys, and copper alloys.

This article focuses on the specific features of carbon steels and alloy steels that are pertinent to heating by induction for warm and hot working processes. It provides a detailed account of the effects of various microstructures on austenitization kinetics for AISI 1045 steels. The article explains the factors to be considered for induction heating of various steel alloys. It describes the temperature and compositional issues that should be considered in the forging of steels that are induction heated.