Abstract:The effect of extrusion parameters on the extrusion load for AZ31 magnesium alloy was investigated with the support of numerical methods. With this regard, the process temperature, extrusion ratio, friction factor and punch velocity were selected as main parameters for the experiments. Besides, the experimental results were analyzed by using the finite element method (FEM) and artificial neural network (ANN) method to build a numerical model for predicting the forming load. All the experimental and numerical results were compared to each other and it was concluded from the results that the effect of friction factor on the extrusion load is more dominant at lower extrusion temperature for all given extrusion ratios and punch velocities. Besides this, higher extrusion ratios require higher process temperatures to obtain the lower extrusion load. Also, it was observed that the increase in the extrusion speed causes a significant increase in the forming load for all extrusion ratios and extrusion temperatures.

Key words: extrusion; magnesium; AZ31; finite element method; artificial neural network