WJEC Vocational Award Engineering Level 1/2

Chapter 12 Engineering Processes The process of forging. 1. Force is applied to two heated workpieces. 2. The heated workpieces bond. 3. After forging there is one cooled workpiece. To heat the metals you intend to work on you would need a forge . Forges can be fuelled by either coal (a more traditional type) or gas (more modern). Gas forges allow the user to control the temperature more accurately and therefore allow the metals to be forged at the correct temperatures more consistently. A blacksmith forging a product, using force and heat. An older coal forge. Drop forging is an industrial process where the force needed to forge two workpieces together is done by a machine called a drop forge . The drop forge also has a die (upper and lower) in the shape of the product you are going to forge. The die is essentially a mould. A heated piece of metal, called a billet , is then placed in the die and then the upper die is dropped with force onto the billet and lower die to create the shape needed. The drop forge process. FORCE Die (upper) Die (lower) Heated metal (billet) Anvil Ram Billet reformed (forged) into new shape New forged product created from metal Examples of drop-forged products. Billet: (or billet of metal) a piece of metal of a certain size that would be shaped by the forging process. Key term 123