Process and forming performance of ploughing extrusion cutting for recycling of metal chips

Abstract

Ploughing Extrusion Cutting (PEC) is a novel method for metal chips recycling, which can directly transform the waste material into useful grooved strips instead of chips, and avoid the cumbersome processes and high costs in other recycling technologies. Experimental investigations were applied in this study to figure out the principle and feasibility of PEC as well as its forming performance, which was mainly effected by imposed chip compression ratio λ and feed speed f . Pure copper grooved strips has been produced in the experiment, with the aspect ratio of fins AR f up to 3:1 and the thickness ratio between the base and the whole chip P b down to 20%. During PEC, the base of chips should be geometrically restricted by the constraining tool to obtain a stable forming process without wrinkle on chips. When 1.44 < λ< 2.06, its reduction had positive effect on the forming performance of the chips (higher AR f and lower P b ), while the increase of f showed positive but limited influence on that. Therefore PEC was proved to be practical and efficient, and we have a basic understanding on its process and forming performance.