ABSTRACT
Equal Channel Angular Extrusion (ECAE) is the extrusion method that involves the use of angular die to introduce plastic deformation on any metal especially aluminum which in turn improves its hardness. Lubricant’s role cannot be under estimated in the process as it requires reducing the high heat of deformation and extrusion pressure involved. The commonly used lubricants for this process were from organic sources, very scarce and non-environmentally friendly. Hence, it is a great advantage to investigate alternative extrusion lubricant from vegetable source.Four vegetable based lubricants such as jatropha oil, castor oil, neem oil and cottonseed oilwere selected for this research. The properties of these selected oils were characterized to its physical and chemical properties. Aluminum rod was machined to 17 billets of size 11.95m x 11.95m x 40m (l × b × h) each and was annealed. The billet size was selected based on the configurations of the fabricated ECAE die. Four billets were extruded with each lubricant which makes the total of 16billets extruded for the four lubricants and the last billet was used as the control. The hardness of the extruded samples was evaluated after the extrusion and compared to the control. The hardness result was compared to the sample extruded with organic based lubricants from the literature It was discovered that all the lubricants tested greatly enhanced hardness of the extruded sample but at different magnitude. Jatropha oil exhibits the greatest hardness on extrusion of Aluminum.
