Determination of Vegetable Based Oils Lubricants Properties for the Extrusion of Aluminum

Abstract

Four vegetable-based oils were used as trial lubricants in the extrusion of aluminium
billet through four different die cross-sections. These oils were extracted from Castor
seeds, Neem seeds, Jathropa seeds and Cotton seeds respectively. Results obtained from
this work as compared with other works done in the area shows that these oils were found
to be suitable as lubricants in the extrusion of aluminium because of their heat reduction
abilities. Extrusion dies with semi die angles of 300
, 450
and 600were used; good quality
surface finish and hardness of extruded billets were obtained. The co efficient of friction
between the billet and the container wall was calculated for each process; Castor oil
ranked the best with good heat reduction ability and gave the least co-efficient of friction
of 0.100 and 0.107 respectively. Also for all cross-sectional billet extruded, round and
triangular billets gave the best surface finish for all the oils. Based on previous
experiments carried out on the extrusion of aluminum, surface cracking were major
defects caused by the rise in temperature as the process proceeds. This research
experiments indicated that the surface quality is good even though the temperature may
be high during extrusion process because of the cooling effect of the lubricants use