What Are the Benefits of Cold Forging?

Adam January 29, 2014Manufacturing Methods • Product Highlights • Q&A

Cold forging is an eco-friendly manufacturing process in which the workpiece is formed under high pressure and low temperature. The process ensures that no air bubbles, porosity or any other impurities are trapped within the material, and thus produces exceptionally high quality products.

Compared with other manufacturing methods (machining, die casting, extrusion, hot forging, etc.), cold forging offers the following benefits:

• Improved mechanical strength
• Improved surface finish
• Better control of tolerance
• Efficient use of raw materials
• Reduced energy consumption
• High production rate
• Low overall cost

In making aluminum heat sinks, cold forging can produce pins that are 50 times as tall as their diameters – an aspect ratio that is considered impossible with other methods, such as die-casting or extrusion.

Unlike stamped-fin or bonded-fin heat sinks, the pins on a forged heat sink are an integral part of the base – they are simply squeezed out of the base. There is no air gap or thermal interface between the pins and the base. Heat can dissipates easily from the base to the pins without additional resistance.