Establishment of a Process for Creep Forging Aluminum Alloy Weapon Components

This program was aimed at a novel manufacturing method for the reduction of the fabrication costs of aluminum weapon components. Its technical goal was to combine the ability of powder metallurgy processing to produce a well-proportioned preform and of creep forging to make a precision part. The work was done in two phases. The first phase was devoted to characterizing elemental 7075 blended aluminum powder, establishing requisite process criteria, and formulating a preliminary process specification. Five variables were investigated under a statistical designed experimental program. They were 1 particle size, 2 preform density, 3 sintering temperature, 4 forging temperature, and 5 percent forging deformation. Using the requisite process criteria set up from these variables, a preliminary process specification was formulated and further refined by isostatic pressing of trapezoidal preforms and their forging into T shapes. The resultant forgings had elements of forward extrusion, backward extrusion, and lateral flow and helped define the optimized parameters necessary for creep forging.