Effect of vegetable based oil as lubricants in extrusion process

Four vegetable based oils were used as trial lubricants in the extrusion of aluminium billet through four different die cross-sections. These oils were extracted from Castor seeds, Neem seeds, Jathropa seeds and Cotton seeds respectively. Results obtained from this work as compared with other works done in the area shows that these oils were found to be suitable as lubricants in the extrusion of aluminium because of their heat reduction abilities. Extrusion dies with semi die angles of 30,45 & 60 degree were used; good quality surface finish and hardness of extruded billets were obtained. The co efficient of friction between the billet and the container wall was calculated for each process; Castor oil ranked the best with good heat reduction ability and gave the least co-efficient of friction of 0.100 and 0.107 respectively. Also for all cross-sectional billet extruded, round and triangular billets gave the best surface finish for all the oils. Based on previous experiments carried out on the extrusion of aluminum, surface cracking were major defects caused by the rise in temperature as the process proceeds. This experiments indicated that the surface quality is good even