Cold formed steel is a very useful way to use steel for many different areas in our lives. From cars to very interesting machines, this steel making process has so much more use than we realize.
What is Forming or Forging
Forging is the use of an impact or pressure to deform metal within the iron or forging die. This type of process is called forging. Forging is one of the important forming methods for metal parts. It can ensure that metal parts have good mechanical properties to meet the use requirements. Whether the metal temperature is below or above the recrystallization temperature can be called hot or Cold formed.
Since the invention of computer aided design (CAD) in 1960, it has become much easier for product designers to design sheet metal components and parts for different applications. But the need to find a suitable production method to create these designs has always been a problem.
CNC machines offer high accuracy and meet tight tolerances, but come with disadvantages such as high cost and material waste. While 3D printing eliminates this problem of material waste, product designers have limited metal options when it comes to 3D printing. A popular manufacturing method that helps product designers accurately create cost-effective sheet metal parts is Cold formed steel design.
What is Cold Forging
Cold formed process is a metal forming and manufacturing process that plastically deforms and compresses a piece of raw material under a punch and a die. The process typically takes place at room temperature rather than higher temperatures such as hot forging.
It needs greater strength, it requires ductile material. Piece sizes come out very well. Usually medium and small sized pieces are Cold formed. Disadvantages of Cold Forming:
· Greater forces and strenght is required in the Cold formed steel process.
· In some cases, the metal needs to be annealed for additional forming.
· Again, in some cases, the metal may not be so ductile that it cannot be cold worked
Hot Forging Process
It is carried out at the highest temperature that does not destroy the metallurgical properties of the alloy under consideration (up to 1250 °C for steel, 300 to 460 °C for Al-Alloys, 750 to 1040 °C for titanium alloys and 700 to 800 °C for Cu-Alloys). Advantages of Hot Forging (VS Cold formed);
● Removal of chemical impurities.
● Improved ductility.
● Homogenized grain structure.
● Accurate styling.
● Complex shapes.
● Breakage resistance.
● Higher weight than Cold forme and volume of the parts.
Materials and Products
Moreover, almost all metals have forcibly alloys, the most common wrought alloys include carbon steel, stainless steel, aluminum, copper, brass, bronze, iron. With the cold forming of steel, it is ensured that the hot rolled products are brought to precise tolerances and superior surface quality is obtained. By applying cold deformation to the product, increases in the hardness and mechanical properties of the material are achieved.
Cold formed is a process that can be used to manufacture a wide variety of parts used in many industries such as aerospace (aircraft engines, airport and auxiliary equipment…), automotive (joints, chassis parts, crankshafts…). electrical (power generation, transmission…) machinery and equipment, hand and industrial vehicles, construction, mining, plumbing (pipeline fittings, valves, flanges…), shipbuilding, railway equipment...
Advantages of Cold Forging (VS hot forging)
● High efficiency
● Increased size control, depending on the cold formed steel sections.
● Costly but effective.
● Improvement of mechanical properties.
● Excellent dimensional accuracy surface quality in Cold formed pieces.
● Environmentally friendly.
Profile production - building in the digital age
Digital sophistication is used in the manufacture of the cold formed steel structures and profiles. Every building in lightweight steel construction is planned on the computer and transferred to a machine. For profile production, straight sheets with a thickness of 1.5 mm are formed into C-shaped profiles.
Compressions and recesses, which the machine produces individually for each profile under program control, ensure that the joints can be joined together without any problems. Installation of the cold former steelopenings are provided as standard on all vertical profiles. Further openings can be planned individually and without additional costs.
We achieve efficient and easier assembly by marking each profile in the machine with the Cold formed.
The Construction of a cold formed steel Frame
The construction of Cold formed lightweight steel constructions is characterized by high-quality connection and joining techniques that result in a perfect frame structure. Precise compression, recesses and countersunk screw holes ensure a level result so that the frame structure can be planked with drywall panels without any disturbing unevenness.
When assembling the outer wall panels of the cold formed steel framing in the factory, a nailing process with screw nails is used. The screw distances are determined by the static properties of the selected drywall panel.
Changes in mechanical properties are related to the amount of reduction in cross section of the original stock. A small initial reduction in cross section can lead to large changes in mechanical properties, but decrease rapidly as the rate of change decreases.
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