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Helical wedge rolling (HWR) is a forming process wherein the wedges are helically wound on the roll face. To form a product, two identical rolls need to be used, both positioned askew to the axis of the billet (cylindrical bar). In order to maintain the material between the rolls rotating in the same direction, the tools cut into the material, making it rotate and translate (towards the axis of the billet) at the same time. The helically moving wedges form the material into the desired shape. In the final stage of the process, the formed product is cut off from the bar stock by the cutters located right behind the wedges. Developed at the Lublin University of Technology (Poland), the innovative HWR process has been successfully applied to produce balls. The present paper describes an example of the application of the HWR process for producing a lever preform aluminum alloy. The design of the process is discussed and the tools used in the process are described. The developed rolling method was positively verified by a numerical simulation. The distributions of effective strains and temperatures in the preform are given, and the variations in the forming forces and torque are presented.
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