Improving the life cycle of forging dies with active brazed ceramic inserts

The use of embedded ceramic inserts in forging tools has lately been investigated and successfully tested with model forging dies. However, there is a danger of the mechanical widening of the steel tool as a major problem of forging dies with embedded ceramic inserts. Furthermore, only rotation symmetric ceramic inserts can be embedded, which allows only a small variety in the construction of tools. A considerably larger number of designs are possible for active metal brazing of ceramic inserts in the die's body material. For achieving this, active brazed ceramic–metal compounds were developed and tested for their practical use in the forging process.