Set up your press fleet once, then plan the optimum billet length, pieces per billet, billets required and completion time for any order.
Set these up once — they're saved in this browser and reused for every order you plan.
| Press name | Container dia (mm) | Max billet length (mm) | Runout table (m) | Exit speed (m/min) | Handling time/billet (min) |
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Exit speed and handling time are typical starting points — replace them with your own press's numbers for accurate time estimates. Saved automatically as you edit.
Enter the section, alloy and order quantity to plan against a selected press
Length trimmed from the very start/end of each extruded run for flow instability. Many plants fold this into the butt allowance instead — leave at 0 if that's your practice.
A billet doesn't go straight to a finished piece — it passes through several stages, and each one changes its length or removes some material. This tool traces one billet through that sequence and works backward from your order to a billet length.
The tail end of the container is left un-extruded and discarded — it protects the die from oxide and core impurities picked up near the back of the billet. Typical practice is 5–8% of billet length for standard sections; some plants run higher for quality-critical or thin-wall profiles.
Volume is conserved: a shorter, fat billet becomes a long, thin profile. The multiplier is the extrusion ratio (container area ÷ total profile area across all cavities) — the same figure from the Extrusion Ratio Calculator.
Every press has a fixed maximum cooling/runout table length. The "optimum" billet length is the longest one — up to the press's own physical container limit — whose extruded length lands just under the table's capacity. This is a documented press-utilisation technique: plants aim to consistently use 90%+ of table capacity, because it means fewer billet changes for the same output (and fewer billet changes means less butt scrap overall and less downtime).
After cooling, the extruded length is stretched to relieve residual stress and straighten it — this typically adds 1.5–3% to the length. Over-stretching (2%+ on some alloys) risks surface defects, so it's a narrow window, not a free lever.
The stretched length is cut into finished pieces. Each cut costs a few millimetres of kerf (blade width), and whatever's left over after the last full piece is scrap. Every cavity in the die produces its own strand simultaneously, so total pieces per billet is pieces-per-strand × number of cavities.
Butt %, stretch %, and kerf are pre-filled with figures used across the industry, but every plant's numbers differ slightly by profile and process — treat the defaults as a starting point and adjust to match your own die and press records.
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