The influence of Die Shape and Back Tension Force on its Wear in the Process of Wire Drawing

In the paper an analysis of the influence of two parameters on the die wear, i.e. the shape of the die and the backpull with the specified force values has been presented. The conical and curve-profile tools have been selected to determine an influence of the die geometry on its wear, and the backpull force has been tested with the use of conical dies. The research was conducted for the drawing of copper wire by sintered carbide die with a mesh diameter of 3 mm. A fixed draw value of 30% relative gap loss was assumed. The axisymmetric numerical model of the drawing process was built and modeled in the MARC/Mentat commercial program for nonlinear and contact issues. As a result of the tests, wear of the dies according to their shape was determined. In addition, for the conical die the drawing force and the force of the metal pressure on the die using different values of the force of the contraction were calculated, as well as wear of the conical die according to the value of the applied backpull force. It has been shown that in the case of the arc die, the distribution of pressure and stress is more uniform over the entire length of the contact zone compared to the conical die. The highest stress gradients occurred in the area of the transition of the crushing part into the drawing part of the die, which caused that the use of the conical die in this area was more than twice as large as the arc die. In addition, on the example of a conical die, it was shown to what extent the depth of its wear decreases with an increase of the test pull force in the range (0-400) of Newtons.