Abstract
‘Conform’ continuous extrusion is a process invented at the UKAEA Springfields Laboratories. Material fed into the peripheral groove of a rotating wheel is first advanced by friction into the chamber formed between the groove and tooling supported in a fixed shoe, and then extruded through a die. Particulate metal, including aluminium and copper as powders and as comminuted scrap cable which is of interest to the electrical industry, is one type of feed from which wire sections have been extruded. The higher strengths obtained from many particulate feeds, often without a decrease in conductivity, may be attributable to an oxide dispersion hardening effect. As a preliminary to investigating the extrusion of a range of metal-non-metal particulate mixtures of possible application as materials for contacts and electrodes, very tentative trials extruding aluminium with either alumina or graphite powders have been initiated.
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