Hot profile extrusion of AA-6060 aluminum chips

Abstract Analyses of energy consumption in manufacturing processes have shown that most of the energy is needed for the production of material such as aluminum or steel and not for further manufacturing steps like forming or cutting. To reduce energy consumption and also a reduction of CO 2 emissions in manufacturing processes, a reduction of the amount of primary material, made from first melting after mining, as well as secondary material, made from melting of recycled scrap material, is needed. In this work, the re-use of aluminum AA-6060 scrap based on milling and turning chips, by direct hot extrusion is presented. To prevent further use of primary aluminum or melting of the chips the process aims at using compacted chips as billet material. The production of the chips as well as the compaction of billets, the extrusion process and the properties of the final profile is presented. In addition to the use of chips based on one alloy the mixture and extrusion of aluminum and SiC particles is presented. The investigations have shown that using billets made of AA-6060 chips can lead to similar mechanical and microstructural properties as using of conventional cast aluminum billets. Investigations on an additional cutting or drilling of the extruded profiles have shown even improved properties due to a reduced chip length.