A Review of Modeling and Control for Aluminum Extrusion

Abstract

In aluminum extrusion, hot billets are compressed to flow through a die for creating an arbitrary shape. This paper discusses the main research fields of aluminum extrusion, and gives a brief review of the modeling and control for aluminum extrusion. Numerous models have been developed to achieve isothermal extrusion, which can be divided into four types: FEM based model, analytical model, experiment-derived model and real-time model. Control of aluminum extrusion process is critical to improving the quality and quantity of the extrudate. The main goal of the control is to keep the exit temperature of extrudate constant, the so-called “isothermal extrusionâ€. Only real-time model-based control is feasible to achieve “real†isothermal extrusion.