Investigation of the influence of process parameters on hot extrusion of magnesium alloy tubes

During the hot extrusion of magnesium alloy, the change of process parameters will affect the mechanical properties of extruded products. In this study, Taguchi method and analysis of variance (ANOVA) are applied to analyze the influence of process parameters on the hot extrusion of magnesium alloy tubes under extrusion ratio of 21.05. The experiments are arranged by orthogonal array method in which magnesium alloys AZ31and AZ61 are used as outer arrays, the factors selected as inner arrays are the billet heating temperature, the initial extrusion speed, the container temperature and the lubricants. The extruded tubes will be carried out tensile test and flattening test, the test results are analyzed by the quality measurement of Taguchi method to find the relationship between the process parameters and mechanical properties of the products, and to acquire the optimal combination of parameters. Then based on the results obtained from the additive model, confirmatory experiments are performed. Besides, the microstructures of extruded tubes are observed to clarify the influence of process parameters on the grain size. Finally, with the same extrusion condition, the variations in tensile strength and flattening strength due to different compositions are discussed.