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Cold forging involves shaping metal parts through compressive forces at or slightly above ambient temperature. It offers advantages over hot forging, including better surface finish, dimensional stability, and lower costs. Cold forming is suited to small to high volume parts and produces high-quality finishes with little post-treatment.
Cold forging is a variation of the metal forging process that involves forming or shaping metal parts through a process of applying powerful localized compressive forces. Cold forming is done with the metal generally held at or slightly above ambient temperature with the temperature always held at or below three-tenths of the recrystallization temperature of the forming metal. The compressive forces involved in cold forging can be applied by hand with a hammer or from powered sources, such as forging machines. In most cases, the metal is forced into a mold in the shape of the finished product or around open shapes or jigs. Cold forming offers several distinct advantages over hot forming processes, which include better surface finish, better dimensional stability, and lower manufacturing costs.
Forging is one of the oldest metal forming processes known to man. The metal forging process involves striking or hammering a piece onto or into a die, pattern, or jig, forcing the metal to flow into the desired shape. Forging is generally divided into three process types based on the temperatures to which the metal is heated prior to forging. It involves hot-to-cold forging, with hot-to-hot processes employing workpiece temperatures ranging from several hundred degrees to over 2,000° Fahrenheit. Cold forging, on the other hand, sees the steel being processed heated to no more than three-tenths of its recrystallization temperature.
In many cases, cold forming is done with the steel part at room temperature. This is particularly suited to the production of small to high volume parts such as fasteners including nails, screws and rivets. The process is therefore attractive as a low cost forging method as expensive heating equipment is taken out of the work cycle. Cold forged steel parts can be bent into shape, forced into impression molds by hand or power hammers, or drawn into shape through a profile die.
Another benefit of the cold forming process is the high quality finish produced on the final products. Cold forged parts require very little post-forging treatment as is the case with hot processes. Softer metals such as aluminum can, however, undergo secondary heating to temper or harden the material. Cold forming is most commonly used to produce smaller objects, although the process can be applied to parts weighing several tons. Other advantages of the process include excellent dimensional stability under high die loads during forging and good stress loading characteristics in the finished product.
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