Influence of heat pipe cooling on the wear of hot forging dies

The temperature of hot forging dies has a high influence on the wear of tool surfaces. In order to reduce the thermal impact on tool life, passively acting heat pipes are tested and the results are presented within this paper. For this purpose, the upper die of a commonly used hot forging tool was equipped with heat pipes and serial forging trials have been performed. The influence of the heat pipes on the die temperature as well as the effects on wear behavior are presented. The heat pipe cooling leads to a lower die temperature and thus to a reduction of adhesive wear. The wear is examined by optical and tactile measurements as well as by micrograph analyses. Conclusively, hardness tests of the tool edge layer are carried out.