Abstract:The main goal of this work is to analyze the semi-industrial process of steel thixoforming. The process was carried out using industrial equipment. This equipment consists of a heating device, industrial robots and a hydraulic press. The globular microstructure ensuring thixotropic properties was obtained using the SIMA method. It is one of the simplest and cheapest methods which could be easy applied in the case of steel alloys. In this work, the hot forged rods, commercially produced from 100Cr6 steel, were used. The first part of the work concerned the determination of the proper temperature range, for thixoforming of 100Cr6 steel. Next, some heating tests were carried out in order to obtain as uniform temperature distribution as possible. Heating process was executed using inductive heating. Microstructure analysis of heated samples reveals globular particles surrounded by liquid phase. At last, the thixoforming process was carried out using closed-die forming technique. Completely filled die cavity and good microstructure of the part show that applied process parameters were properly selected.

Key words: thixoforming; globular microstructure; rheological properties; physical modeling; numerical modeling