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Thixoforming of steels becomes more and more investigated. Recent works show the economical potential of the process and lead to many industrial tests. In deed, compared to light metals, thixoformed steels open new markets and allow new designs of industrial parts taking into account, material and energy saving as well as industrial criteria such as parts quality and life. The Thixosteel consortium is developing new tools either in modelling, material study, assessment, parts design, adequate tools and equipments. Recent results and actual state of the art is presented and discussed. © 2007 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through different papers, authors shown that the influence of thermal exchanges was a first order parameter on the semi-solid steel behaviour, and certainly for every semi-solid metallic materials. These thermal exchanges hide other parameters effect like, for example, the strain rate influence. This paper tries to determine the influence of these two parameters by using a new extrusion device on a hydraulic press. This new tools conception annihilated the influence of the decrease of the punch speed before stopping and permitted to have a constant speed during the experiment. This work also deals with the homogeneous flow during thixoforming of steel and shows the importance to couple initial temperature of the slug with punch speed. This paper presents different conditions which permitted to have a homogeneous flow by keeping a low load. © 2007 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]