Design of a multi-pass shaped roll drawing process for manufacturing square-shaped profiles

In this study, a multi-pass shaped roll drawing process was designed that applied four non-driven idle rolls to manufacture square-shaped profiles. Unlike other drawing processes, this process doesn’t require an intermediate heat treatment between passes. The concept of average reduction was applied to design a pass schedule, and a method for designing the intermediate die shape was developed to ensure uniform deformation and limit strain deviation. The Geleji model was modified with a correction factor to predict the forming load, which can be ultimately used to confirm the process feasibility. The Taguchi method for experimental design was used to select the optimal process conditions to ensure dimensional accuracy. The derived conditions were used to fabricate dies and perform drawing experiments. The experimental results showed high dimensional accuracy and were consistent with the finite element (FE) analysis results. Thus, the proposed process can potentially be applied to various profiles in the future.