HyperXtrude Improves Die Design and Optimizes Forming Processes at Constellium, France

Constellium extrudes aluminium alloys for a wide range of applications in various markets, such as the aerospace, automotive and rail industries. Constellium’s research center is world-renowned in aluminium metallurgy innovations and offers its skills to the entire company. Its major focus is the support of the growth of the company’s businesses through the design and development of such innovative aluminium-based solutions and processes as melting, casting, recycling, extrusion, rolling and finishing.

“We have decided to use HyperXtrude, the dedicated software in the HyperWorks Suite for the simulation of the extrusion process, because it offers a robust solver and a user-friendly graphical interface,” said Mehdi Ben Tahar, R&D extrusion engineer at Constellium. “Considering what is available in the market, Altair’s software environment is one of the most efficient solutions in terms of CPU time. Moreover, the close contact we have with the Altair support and development teams is of great advantage for us.

“We are pleased to see Constellium using HyperWorks and especially HyperXtrude to such an extent and are happy to know that it helps to improve the company’s die design and forming processes,” said Mauro Guglielminotti, director of Southern Europe and Africa and managing director of Altair, France. “HyperXtrude offers the right features to address the complex requirements for the simulation of metal extrusion. The ability to optimize the forming processes prior to production leads to materials savings, increased tool life and maximized economic utilization of the equipment.”

Altair HyperXtrude is an advanced solver for manufacturing process simulations and validations. Highly robust, accurate and easy to use, HyperXtrude provides the best and well customized simulation solutions for metal extrusion, polymer extrusion, billet forging, friction stir welding, metal rolling, and resin transfer molding. As the pioneering technology in manufacturing process simulation, HyperXtrude accurately simulates the material flow and heat transfer during manufacturing processes allowing the users to significantly reduce die design time and costly die tryouts. Its feature rich environment provides value and usefulness to all levels of users from shop floor engineers, analysts, to researchers.