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© ECL
metall. The 951 technology is being incorporated
into the USD300m automotive expansion
underway at Alcoa’s Davenport (Iowa)
Works facility, scheduled for completion by
the end of 2013.
Alcoa 951 employs an organic, environmentally-friendly
system tailored for both
the aluminium substrate and the structural
adhesives used for joining. The surface treatment
is applied through an immersion or
spray application in which the organic components
bond with oxides present on the metal
surface. The molecular structure chemically
binds aluminium oxide with one end, and
adhesive with the other. This creates a strong
link at the molecular level resulting in lasting,
durable joints for automotive structures.
The minimal level of treatment on the surface
makes it essentially ‘transparent’ to downstream
steps in the automotive manufacturing
process such as forming, resistance spot
welding and painting.
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suppliers
emal and ecl celebrate installation
of first pTm for phase ii expansion
Emirates Aluminium (Emal) and ECL France
have celebrated the installation of the first
pot tending machine (PTM) for the Phase II
smelter expansion. The PTM is one out of
fifteen that will operate on the new potline
at Emal. The machine is designed to increase
performance in terms of safety, productivity
and reliability as well as reducing environmental
impact. The machine has complete
wireless controls that allow the operators to
ECL Pot Tending Machine
handle almost 100% of the crane function in
the potroom such as anode changing, dressing
and beam rising as well as metal tapping.
As part of the Phase II development, ECL
has supplied Emal with equipment for the potroom
comprising of 15 PTMs, two transfer
gantries, one cathode transport crane, two
lifting beams, 16,200 anode clamps and pair
of J-hooks for activities connected with the
operation of reduction cells.
VHe thimble press with novel features
VHE has designed and is currently fabricating
a thimble removal press with several novel
features. The machine will be installed and
commissioned by May 2013. The thimble
press is designed for use with stubs arranged
three in line, but it can be adapted for other
configurations. Uniquely, the design permits
the machine to automatically adjust to yokes
with different stem offsets, a necessary feature
at certain smelters.
When a rod enters the press, the stem is
clamped with a set of hydraulically operated
rollers which permit the secured rod to move
vertically during the thimble removal process.
Three pairs of hydraulically operated clamps
close around the stubs immediately above the
thimbles. These clamps have adequate tolerance
to accommodate bent stubs.
A single 500 mm bore hydraulic cylinder
provides the breaking force, moving an anvil
head upwards to engage the bottoms of
all three thimbles and forcing them against
the three pairs of stub clamps, breaking the
thimbles. The thimble pieces fall into chutes
on either side of the machine, from where
a discharge conveyor takes them for further
processing.
A state-of-the-art hydraulic power pack
ensures that adequate pressure and flow is
maintained at all times, using two 75 kW motors
driving variable displacement pumps.
rusal and rosneft sign agreement
on the supply of petroleum coke
UC Rusal and the oil company Rosneft have
signed a letter of intent to cooperate in the
supply of petroleum coke. The companies aim
to sign a number of long-term contracts for
the supply of all the petroleum coke produced
by Rosneft to Rusal over the next 3-5 years.
The oil company already supplies petroleum
coke to some aluminium smelters of Rusal.
To identify and develop new opportunities for
cooperation, the two companies will establish
a joint working group to consider the terms
of possible long-term contracts, as well as to
assess the balance of production and consumption
of petroleum coke in Russia until 2018,
and to identify further areas of cooperation.
Rusal is one of the largest consumers of petroleum
coke in Russia.
Thermo-calc software
releases Therm-calc 3.0
Thermo-Calc Software AB has announced
the release of Thermo-Calc 3.0, which constitutes
the third generation of its computational
thermodynamics software. Thermo-Calc is a
powerful software package used to perform
thermodynamic and phase diagram calculations
for multi-component systems of practical
importance. Calculations are based on thermodynamic
databases produced using the Calphad
(Calculation of phase diagrams) method.
Databases are available for steels, Ti-, Al-,
Mg-, Ni-alloys, multi-component oxides and
many other materials.
“Our main ambitions for this new version
of Thermo-Calc have been to unify the two
earlier versions of Thermo-Calc (i.e. Thermo-
Calc Classic and Thermo-Calc Windows) into
one application, and to create a framework
that is suitable for future extension with additional
modules and functionality that will
integrate more closely with our other software
tools such as Dictra and TC-Prisma,”
says Anders Engström, chief executive of
Thermo-Calc Software. Calphad is based on
relating the underlying thermodynamics of a
system to predicting the phases that can form
and the amounts and compositions of those
phases in multi-component systems of industrial
relevance.
■
The author
The author, Dipl.-Ing. R. P. Pawlek is founder
of TS+C, Technical Info Services and Consulting,
Sierre (Switzerland), a service for the primary
aluminium industry. He is also the publisher
of the standard works Alumina Refineries and
Producers of the World and Primary Aluminium
Smelters and Producers of the World. These
reference works are continually updated, and
contain useful technical and economic information
on all alumina refineries and primary
aluminium smelters of the world. They are
available as loose-leaf files and / or CD-ROMs
from Beuth-Verlag GmbH in Berlin.
ALUMINIUM · 5/2013 63