Extrud: a coupled heat and flow solver for 3D simulation of aluminium extrusion

In this paper, we investigate the simulation of aluminum extrusion processes by means of a newly developed coupled heat- and flow solver. The extrusion problem is here formulated as two sub-problems which are solved separately in a staggered solution strategy: 1) A non-Newtonian Navier-Stokes flow problem where the viscosity depends both on the effective strain rate and the temperature, and 2) a linear heat conduction problem. The extrusion solver is implemented in C++ based on the Difipack software package (see http: //www.nobjects.com/Diffpack). The results of the numerical simulations are verified against physical experiments conducted by the extrusion laboratory at SINTEF in Trondheim.