Honeycomb extrusion die and methods
AssigneeCorning Incorporated
InventorsHarry A. Kragle, Floyd E. Stumpff, David R. Treacy, Jr.
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A honeycomb extrusion die including a feed section having a plurality of feedholes for the input of an extrudable material, a discharge section including a discharge opening for discharging the extrudable material as a channeled honeycomb body, and a multilayer transition section disposed between the feed section and the discharge section for conveying and conditioning the extrudable material from the feed to the discharge sections, is disclosed. Also disclosed are methods for making and using the die.
Claims42
A honeycomb extrusion die comprising:
- a feed section having a plurality of feedholes for the input of an extrudable material;
- a discharge section terminating on a discharge face, the discharge face comprising a discharge opening for discharging the extrudable material as a channeled honeycomb body;
- and
- a transition section disposed between and joined to each of the feed section and the discharge section, the transition section being formed of a stacked plurality of thin metal transition layers and containing a plurality of conduits, formed by successions of openings in the transition layers, the conduits being in at least partial registry with the feedholes and communicating with the discharge opening, for transporting the extrudable material as feed streams between the feed and discharge sections of the die.
A method for extruding a honeycomb product which comprises:
- (i) introducing an extrudable material as a plurality of feed streams into a plurality of feedholes extending into a feed section of a honeycomb extrusion die;
- (ii) delivering the feed streams from the feedholes into a multilayer metal transition section adjacent the feed section, the transition section comprising a plurality of conduits having openings in at least partial registry with the feedholes for conveyance of the feed streams;
- (iii) redirecting, reshaping and/or dividing the feed streams within the conduits in the transition section to provide a plurality of redirected, reshaped and/or divided feed streams of extrudable material;
- (iv) delivering the redirected, divided and/or reshaped feed streams from the transition section into a discharge section adjacent the transition section, the discharge section comprising a discharge opening connecting with the conduits and configured to discharge the extrudable material as a channeled honeycomb body;
- and
- (v) discharging the extrudable material from the discharge opening as a honeycomb product.
A method for making a honeycomb extrusion die which comprises the steps of:
- forming a plurality of feedholes in a die body plate;
- forming an array of openings in each of a plurality of thin transition plates;
- stacking the thin transition plates to form a plate stack comprising a base transition plate and a terminating transition plate wherein the openings in each plate are in at least partial registry with the openings in adjacent plates in the plate stack, and wherein the arrays of openings form an array of conduits through the plate stack;
- positioning the base transition plate of the plate stack against the die body plate so that the feedholes are in at least partial registry with the conduits;
- positioning a die discharge section against the terminating transition plate of the plate stack;
- and
- joining the die body plate, plate stack and die discharge section together to form an extrusion die preform.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.