Aluminium International Today September October 2020 by Quartz Business Media

INDUSTRY NEWS

ROLLING TECHNOLOGY

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

TRANSPORT & HANDLING

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THE JOURNAL OF ALUMINIUM PRODUCTION AND PROCESSING

YEARS

EXPERIENCE IN THE ALUMINUM MELTING INDUSTRY

ALUMINIUM INTERNATIONAL TODAY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020

SINGLE CHAMBER/MULTI CHAMBER FURNACES SCRAP DECOATING SYSTEMS TILTING ROTARY MELTING FURNACES SCRAP CHARGING MACHINES LAUNDER SYSTEMS CASTING/HOLDING FURNACES HOMOGENIZING OVENS COOLERS SOW PRE-HEATERS PRE-HEATERS PRE REPAIR & ALTERATIONS

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INDUSTRY NEWS

ROLLING TECHNOLOGY

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

TRANSPORT & HANDLING

OVER

www.aluminiumtoday.com September/October 2020â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Vol.33 No.5

THE JOURNAL OF ALUMINIUM PRODUCTION AND PROCESSING

YEARS

EXPERIENCE IN THE ALUMINUM MELTING INDUSTRY

ALUMINIUM INTERNATIONAL TODAY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020

Stationary Melter Patented Delacquering System

Stationary Melter with Zmag

Autotapper

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CONTENTS 1

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LEADER NEWS PRIMARY

A journey of the ‘Chain of Custody’

ROLLING Volume 33 No. 5 – September/October 2020

COVER

Editorial Editor: Nadine Bloxsome Tel: +44 (0) 1737 855115 nadinebloxsome@quartzltd.com

INDUSTRY NEWS

ROLLING TECHNOLOGY

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

TRANSPORT & HANDLING

Rolling mill revamp

Aluminium Foil: Rolling with the times

Mill vibration phenomena during cold rolling

Assan Alüminyum’s sustainability-oriented OVER YEARS approach guides it through the pandemic

Production Editor: Annie Baker

EXPERIENCE IN THE ALUMINUM MELTING INDUSTRY

www.aluminiumtoday.com September/October 2020—Vol.33 No.5

DIGITALIZATION

THE JOURNAL OF ALUMINIUM PRODUCTION AND PROCESSING

Sales

Sales Director: Ken Clark kenclark@quartzltd.com Tel: +44 (0)1737 855117

Advertisement Production Production Executive: Martin Lawrence

ALUMINIUM INTERNATIONAL TODAY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020

Sales Manager: Nathan Jupp nathanjupp@quartzltd.com Tel: +44 (0)1737 855027

Improving management of the value chain

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Stationary Melter Patented Delacquering System

Focus on Circular Aluminium Action Plan

Beyond the ﬁnish line - From linear sprint to circular marathon

Managing Director: Tony Crinion CEO: Steve Diprose

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Circulation/subscriptions Elizabeth Barford Tel +44 (0) 1737 855028 Fax +44 (0) 1737 855034 email subscriptions@quartzltd.com Annual subscription: UK £245, all other countries £265. For two year subscription: UK £440, all other countries £480. Airmail prices on request. Single copies £45

Industry future prooﬁng

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Dynaprime: Alcoa high efﬁciency CFF ﬁltering system

ALUMINIUM INTERNATIONAL TODAY is published six times a year by Quartz Business Media Ltd, Quartz House, 20 Clarendon Road, Redhill, Surrey, RH1 1QX, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 1737 855000 Fax: +44 (0) 1737 855034 Email: aluminium@quartzltd.com Aluminium International Today (USO No; 022-344) is published bi-monthly by Quartz Business Ltd and distributed in the US by DSW, 75 Aberdeen Road, Emigsville, PA 17318-0437. Periodicals postage paid at Emigsville, PA. POSTMASTER: send address changes to Aluminium International c/o PO Box 437, Emigsville, PA 17318-0437. Printed in the UK by: Pensord, Tram Road, Pontlanfraith, Blackwood, Gwent, NP12 2YA, UK © Quartz Business Media Ltd 2020

TRANSPORT & HANDLING 63

AGV’S will do the job

Optimise manufacturing and storage space

Smart Casthouse Solutions

STORVIK 75

Multi-million pound contract with Hydro

ASSOCIATION UPDATE 76

Focus on: Dutch Aluminium Association

ENVIRONMENT 78 SEARCH FOR ALUMINIUM INTERNATIONAL TODAY

Clean air means the world to Filter Designs

ENERGY 83

Energy storage and an energy intensive industry

EVENT PREVIEW ISSN1475-455X

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Contents Template.indd 1

ICSOBA goes virtual: 16th-18th November 2020 September/October 2020

10/09/2020 06:14:11

2 COMMENT

First batch of low carbon aluminium Apple products

What does a webinar a day keep away? I am writing this comment (still from the comfort of my own home office) as small groups of children skip by on their first day back to school, after what must have felt like the longest summer holidays ever. This ‘back to school’ feeling in September never seems to go away, even in adulthood and as the world starts to get back to whatever this ‘new normal’ is, we are very aware that things have changed and we are entering a period of recovery. While we should have been gearing up for the ALUMINIUM Show next month, instead, we are working to bring you a virtual experience between the 5th - 9th October. We know, virtual experiences are still a strange idea, but we are also aware of the need to provide information and content to our industry in these special times and welcome the opportunity to do so together with Reed Exhibitions Germany during the period of the original exhibition. We are inviting the whole industry to join us every day during this ‘ALUMINIUM Week’ for a dedicated webinar and hear from industry experts about green technologies, automation, robotics and a look at building a sustainable recovery plan across Europe. Registration is free and you can pick and choose which of the webinars to attend, or sign up to watch the recorded version at your leisure! Find out more: www.aluminiumtoday.com/online-showcase

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Apple recently unveiled its plan to become carbon neutral across its entire business, manufacturing supply chain, and product life cycle by 2030. The company is already carbon neutral today for its global corporate operations, and this new commitment means that by 2030, every Apple device sold will have net zero climate impact. Aluminium is a key material in many of Apple’s products, and, for more than 130 years, it has been produced through a carbon-intensive smelting process. In May 2018, aluminium manufacturers Alcoa Corporation and Rio Tinto Aluminium announced Elysis: A joint venture to commercialise patented technology that

eliminates direct greenhouse gas emissions from the traditional smelting process. This is a revolutionary advancement in the manufacturing of one of the world’s most widely used metals.

As part of Apple’s commitment to reducing the environmental impact of the products through innovation, Alcoa helped accelerate the development of this technology at the Alcoa Technical Centre in Pittsburgh, USA. Apple has partnered with both aluminium companies, and the governments of Canada and Québec, to collectively invest a combined $144 million in future research and development. In December 2019, Apple announced it had bought the first-ever commercial batch of carbon-free aluminium resulting from this joint venture. This aluminium is currently being used in the manufacturing of the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Alcoa to supply low-carbon ECOLUM™ to Gränges Alcoa Corporation has reached an agreement to supply ECOLUM™ rolling slabs to Gränges. ECOLUM™ is part of Alcoa’s SUSTANA™ line of low-carbon products that support supply chain sustainability. Gränges has a longterm target to reduce the intensity of carbon emissions across its entire supply chain. “Gränges is committed to reducing our climate impact from a life-cycle perspective, and thereby

enhancing our sustainability performance,” said Sofia Hedevåg, Gränges’ SVP Sustainability. “One of the key priorities in our climate strategy is to collaborate along the value chain and increase the sourcing and use of recycled aluminium and low-carbon primary aluminium since such materials significantly reduce our products’ carbon footprint.” Alcoa’s ECOLUM™ cast products are produced at hydroelectric-pow-

ered aluminium smelters and guarantee no more than 2.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide smelter emissions per metric ton of aluminium. This is 75 percent better than the industry average. When also considering the upstream emissions from bauxite mining and refining, ECOLUM™ guarantees less than 4.0 metric tons of total carbon dioxide equivalents, per metric ton of aluminium.

Hydro: Natural gas MoU Hydro has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Golar Power with the aim to replace a major part of its current fuel oil consumption at the Hydro Alunorte alumina refinery in Brazil with more environmentally friendly natural gas. According to the MoU signed with Golar Power on July 22, the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is expected to be available in Barcarena during 2022. Hydro aims to adapt the calcination process and part of the steam generation at Alunorte, in order to

switch from fuel oil to LNG. “Hydro is committed to drive sustainability and industry best practices. The LNG project will help make our operation more sustainable and will enable access to natural gas for other industries and consumers in the state of Pará,” says John Thuestad, Exec-

utive Vice President for Hydro’s Bauxite & Alumina business area. Hydro Alunorte will be the first significant gas consumer in the state of Pará, and thereby a facilitator in establishing the infrastructure for LNG. Availability of natural gas is important for industrial development in the region and enables the substitution of more carbon-intensive fuels, such as fuel oil and diesel. This project is in line with Hydro’s climate strategy and commitment to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030.

INDUSTRY NEWS 3

TRIMET: Electrolysis 4.0 Project TRIMET Aluminium SE is participating in the “Aluminium Electrolysis 4.0” project. In cooperation with the University of Wuppertal (BUW), the materials specialist is developing innovative concepts for a more efficient production of aluminium in fused-salt electrolysis and for adapting aluminium production to the power supply through renewable energies. The aim is to reduce CO2 emissions by improving operational energy efficiency. A large number of aluminium electrolysis process optimisations are being researched and tested. The process developed by TRIMET to make aluminium electrolysis more flexible, which the company is currently testing on an industrial scale, serves as the basis. The initial results of the research project show that energy can be saved and efficiency increased by optimising cathode design, plate

current measurement and process control, even in the case of flexible aluminium electrolysis. For example, high-cost cell cathodes can be operated without critical

wear. In addition, power requirements can be kept nearly constant despite the flexibilisation of the energy input by using metals with low electrical resistance in the supply lines and improved insulation in the cell wall. With the help of modern simulation models, data analysis and predictions, any deviations from optimum process con-

ditions can be detected and corrected much faster. The required controller hardware and user interface has already been designed, programmed and installed in some furnaces for test purposes. Cost-effective plate current measurement has also been developed with a new type of data evaluation in a robust implementation. The combination of these new developments leads to an energy-efficient, control-optimised aluminium electrolysis with flexible process management. In the current test phase, electrolytic furnaces equipped with the new technology show stable energy consumption, even under a flexible current feed. The prerequisite for implementation in standard operation is an energy policy framework that gives adequate consideration to a flexible production process.

Rio Tinto files complaint with Icelandic Competition Authority Rio Tinto has submitted a formal complaint to the Icelandic Competition Authority (ICA) alleging abuse of market dominance by Landsvirkjun, the energy supplier to Rio Tinto’s ISAL aluminium smelter in Iceland. Rio Tinto is asking the ICA to address anti-competitive conduct by Landsvirkjun through discriminatory pricing and long-duration power contracts, so that the ISAL smelter and other Icelandic manufacturing and businesses are able to compete internationally. Rio Tinto Aluminium chief exec-

utive Alf Barrios said “Landsvirkjun’s abuse of its dominant position in the Icelandic energy market needs to be addressed or Iceland is in danger of losing export industries with major employment like ISAL. ISAL pays significantly more for its energy than other aluminium producers in Iceland, which undermines its competitive position in the market. We cannot continue to produce aluminium in Iceland if the power pricing system is not transparent, fair and internationally competitive. In the meantime, our teams at ISAL will

continue to focus on safely reducing cost, improving productivity and delivering on our commitments to customers.” Rio Tinto’s complaint alleges that pricing terms of the power agreement with Landsvirkjun are discriminatory, abuse its market dominant position and cannot be justified. Landsvirkjun’s supply contracts bind customers to long-duration terms, rendering it impossible for alternative energy suppliers to either enter the Icelandic market or expand operations.

ASI certifies ALVANCE Dunkerque site ALVANCE Aluminium Dunkerque facility has been successfully certified against the ASI Performance Standard for responsible production, sourcing and stewardship of aluminium. It is the largest primary aluminium smelter in Europe and specialises in the manufacture of aluminium slabs and ingots, which are destined for use across a range Aluminium International Today

of value-added applications in the transport, automotive, packaging, building and construction industries. The site produces over 284,000 tonnes of aluminium per year and employs almost 600 staff. Amélie Hennion, Managing Director of ALVANCE Aluminium Dunkerque said, “We are very proud of this milestone towards our objective to be a leading sus-

tainable and carbon-neutral aluminium company. ALVANCE Aluminium Dunkerque is committed to operating and serving its customers in a sustainable manner. While we have always been at the forefront of such requirements, the ASI certification is a great recognition of the work everyone at our plant is doing to establish our sustainability credentials.”

UPSTREAM IN BRIEF Hindalco: Red mud use Hindalco Industries Ltd. has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with UltraTech Cement Ltd., India’s largest manufacturer of cement and concrete, to deliver 1.2 million metric tonnes of red mud (also known as bauxite residue) annually to UltraTech’s 14 plants located across 7 states. Hindalco is the world’s first company to achieve 100% red mud utilisation across three of its refineries. Hydro Paragominas bauxite pipeline in Brazil halted Hydro has halted operation of the pipeline transporting bauxite from the Paragominas bauxite mine to the alumina refinery Alunorte for extended maintenance, temporarily halting production at the mine and reducing production at Alunorte. Hyd ro had scheduled the replacement of two sections of the pipeline in Q3 and Q4 2020, as part of the longterm maintenance plan for the pipeline.

EGA marks one year since bauxite exports began from Guinea subsidiary Emirates Global Aluminium has marked one year since the first bauxite was exported from its wholly-owned mining subsidiary Guinea Alumina Corporation. In its first year of production, GAC has exported over 6.1 million dry metric tonnes of bauxite ore to customers around the world, whilst maintaining a world-class safety performance. GAC is on-track to ramp-up to full production, equivalent to some 12 million tonnes per year, by the end of 2020.

4 INDUSTRY NEWS

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Jaguar Land Rover up-cycles aluminium to cut emissions by 1/4 Research by Jaguar Land Rover has revealed how an innovative recycling process could up-cycle aluminium waste from household appliances and end-of-life vehicles into the premium cars of the future and reduce production CO2 emissions by up to 26 per cent. The REALITY aluminium project is a key part of Jaguar Land Rover’s Destination Zero mission to reduce carbon emissions and its ambition to make societies safer and environments cleaner through relentless innovation. Engineers were able to use the recycled aluminium parts and mix it with a lower amount of primary aluminium to form a new and tested prototype alloy, comparable to the existing Jaguar Land Rover grade and quality.

Analysis of the recycling and manufacturing process revealed it has the potential to reduce alloy production CO2 emissions by up to 26 per cent compared to the current automotive grade, helping Jaguar Land Rover further close the loop on its manufacturing and use of raw materials. By recovering the high-quality automotive-grade aluminium used to manufacture vehicles, Jaguar Land Rover can re-use the premium properties as part of a blend, reducing the need for virgin aluminium in vehicle production. Typically, end-of-life vehicle scrap is exported overseas where it can be re-used for low-end applications, but new advanced separation technology has enabled it to be up-cycled back into the

automotive process, helping close the loop and reduce the environmental impact. The £2 million project, co-funded by Innovate UK and in partnership with Brunel University, is helping Jaguar Land Rover extend its aluminium closed loop and recycling initiatives as part of Destination Zero. Jaguar Land Rover has already reduced its global operating CO2 emissions per vehicle by 50.7 per cent since 2007 and remains committed to an ongoing decarbonisation process. Between September 2013 and March 2020, around 360,000 tonnes of closedloop scrap have been processed back into the brand’s lightweight aluminium intensive architecture, across all vehicle lines including the Jaguar XE.

AMAG acquires majority share of the German Aircraft Philipp Group AMAG Austria Metall AG is acquiring a 70% share of the German company Aircraft Philipp Gruppe (ACP) headquartered in Übersee/ Chiemsee. With the acquisition of the ACP’s shares majority, AMAG is now extending value creation in the direction of mechanical processing (such as milling and drilling) and the manufacturing of special components. This combination, with the acknowledged AMAG competencies of areas of rolling, casting and recycling, represents

an unique sustainable value chain. This comprises of the resource-saving closed-loop-recycling of plate off-cuts and chips resulted from milling processes, as well as an improved buy-to-fly-ratio and optimised logistics along the entire value chain, resulting in a considerably reduced CO2-footprint. “AMAG is an innovative premium supplier of aluminium flat rolled products made of sustainably produced primary material and a focus on specialty products. With the acquisition of ACP we are extending

the AMAG value chain to the benefit of our customers. For the first time, in addition to rolled, semi-finished products, we are now also offering mechanically processed finished products. Based on a stable ownership structure, the aim is to further expand the joint product portfolio and in the future to also make these offerings available to additional sectors and industries,” as Gerald Mayer, CEO of AMAG Austria Metall AG, outlined. The takeover is expected to be concluded in late autumn.

CANPACK commences production at its greenfield facility in Stribro Only 10 months after the investment project announcement, the first batch of aluminium beverage cans reached the customer – the

ˇ Plzenský Prazdroj brewery. Soon ˇ all brands of Plzenský Prazdroj will be available on shelves in cans delivered by CANPACK Czechia.

“This facility is a landmark in Canpack’s continued strategic partnership with Asahi and ˇ Plzenský Prazdroj. Yet another step to becoming the global partner of choice for impactful, experience-enhancing and sustainable packaging solutions” says Stephen McAneny, Group Commercial Officer at CANPACK.

2020 DIARY September 21 - 23rd International Aluminium 2020 Spend three days gaining latest insights and doing business with key companies at the largest event in Europe dedicated to the aluminium market. * VIRTUAL * www.metalbulletin.com/events/ international-aluminiumconference

November 9 - 13th World Aluminium Conference 2020 (USA) The CRU World Aluminium Conference is changing. Starting in early September and running all the way through to December, this virtual event will provide you with insight and networking from the beginning of contract season to the end. * VIRTUAL * w w w. e v e n t s . c r u g r o u p . c o m / aluminium/home

16 - 18th 38th Conference and Exhibition ICSOBA 2020 Promoting the exchange of ideas and know-how from different fields of research related to bauxite exploration and mining, and alumina and aluminium production. * VIRTUAL * wwwicsoba.org/2020/

December 8 - 9th Future Aluminium Forum Now in its third year, the Forum has established itself as the key event to show case studies, discuss optimisation through machine learning and examine robotics, automation and augmented reality across the value chain. * VIRTUAL * www.futurealuminiumforum. com

9th World Aluminium Conference 2020 (Asia) * VIRTUAL * w w w. e v e n t s . c r u g r o u p . c o m / aluminium/home For a full listing visit www. aluminiumtoday.com and click on Events Diary Aluminium International Today

TOGETHER TOWARDS PERFORMANCE

ALUMINIUM Materials handling and lifting systems from rodding to the pots

Storage systems

Centrifugal blowers

Ship loaders/unloaders

Bath and carbon recycling plant systems

Dense/solid phase and other conveying systems Potfeed e.g. HyperDense Phase Systems (HDPSTM) Dosing devices

Pot process control systems Electrolysis handling equipment Carbon: rodding and anode handling systems; baking furnace lifting solutions

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This article is a contribution about how the VAREYE Chain of Custody system works in real life, taking as a reference the long and multi-faceted journey of Bauxite ore through all the transportation and transformation processes required to obtain Aluminium alloys ready to use for a specific end customer who manufactures cars. If you will bear with me for a while, you will be able to follow step by step all the complex interactions needed to obtain one single ton of the valuable metal, but most of all you will gain a true understanding on how it is truly possible to ascertain without doubt that the metal that you, the OEM end-customer, are going to use into your cars comes from the reliable and sustainable source that you have selected in first instance. Now get ready, the journey starts! Background (just a bit of technical stuff) As the vast majority of my readers might not be perfectly acquainted with all processes needed to get Aluminium in the shape that we normally encounter when we open our windows at home, I’ll make here a brief excursus about how Aluminium and its alloys are actually fabricated. Do not worry, nothing too technical but, alas, a minimum of knowledge we need. And for those who want to know more, some references are reported in the notes below. From Bauxite to Aluminium Pure Aluminium is obtained in liquid form at approximately 900 degrees Celsius by melting inside electrolytic furnaces a substance called Alumina, which is Aluminium Oxide (Al2O3). You can obtain roughly 1 ton of Aluminium from 2 tons of Alumina. This process is normally carried out at plants called “smelters”. Alumina, in turn, is obtained by a complex series of chemical processes from the ore, which is called Bauxite. You need roughly 4 tons of Bauxite to obtain 1 ton of Alumina. The chemical plant processing Bauxite to Alumina is called “refinery”. Once you have obtained pure liquid Aluminium you need to solidify it, as it is or mixed with other substances and metals in order to create the Aluminium Alloys. Commonly added substances to Aluminium to obtain different mechanical and chemical characteristics, include Magnesium, Iron, Zinc, Manganese, Titanium and a lot more. This final process of solidification is carried out in plants called “casting houses”.

A journey of metal ‘Chain of Custody’ in real life By Franco Mazzucato*

And from Aluminium to products You can obtain Alu Alloys in several different shapes, each more suitable than others for the subsequent manufacturing processes. I.e., in order to obtain sheets to be used by OEM suppliers to manufacture the Body-in-White that will be the “skin” of your car, then you need to cast slabs (also called sheet ingots), that are big parallelepipeds that must undergo several processes at a plant called “Rolling Mill” before becoming the sheets that, conveniently deformed and painted, will constitute the bonnet, the roof, the doors and other parts of the final car. Although the story is slightly more complicated than illustrated above, that’s enough to start our tale and to understand where we are at each stage of the metal journey. “I want a certified Chain of Custody for my metal!” This is what our customer, an OEM, told us when they were looking for a system to ascertain that the metal that they would use in the future to manufacture their cars would come from a certain and sustainable source. We replied with a smile, a comprehension nod, and by enrolling our customer into the VAREYE system as “end-user”. The whole took approximately 5 minutes, because VAREYE needs a very small amount of data for the set-up: the name of the customer company, at least one user (supervisor or super-user) for the customer’s company, an e-mail address and a smartphone number. The end-user is not the last link in the Value Chain. By far!

In effect, as we saw above, for this particular case the end-user was the very first link in the Aluminium Value Chain. Well, there are cases in which the original raw material supplier wants all of its production to be certified under a Chain of Custody system but… that’s another story altogether! Once the user was created, an automatic e-mail was sent containing a unique User-ID and a preliminary password to be changed during the first log-in to the system. From this moment on, all the system is fully in the hands of the participants to the Chain of Custody, who in turn and one by one, in a controlled and stepwise manner, will be the Custodian of the raw materials that will lead in the end to the delivery of Aluminium Alloys, in the desired shape, to our end-user. Now, our OEM customer had to log-in into VAREYE and to create the Company and the user who would be the very first supplier of the original raw material, just at the very beginning of the Value Chain for Aluminium. So our end-user created in the system the Company and the required user (again with just the very few pieces of information described above, thus investing some 5 minutes of time) and the process started. The original raw material supplier steps-in As we saw above, the user at the supplier’s side was created by the enduser. This link closes the loop within the CoC, because the supplier will generate a supply that, at the end of all processes of

*Metal Supply Experts GmbH www.metalsupplyexperts.com September/October 2020

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mastered by the VAREYE system, and this constitutes the guarantee about the solidity and the continuity of the CoC. Finally, assigning the lot for transportation to the logistics provider generates a QRC that will be readable exclusively by the transporting entity (the user dedicated to that transportation, in our case the captain of the vessel) and by the receiver, the user at the refinery that is due to receive that lot.

transformation and transportation, will reach the end-user for which it was generated. Naturally, when you create a supply of Bauxite, you create several thousands of tons in one shot, therefore the supplier will generate a QRC for a whole lot. The important thing is, that only a small fraction of that lot will eventually land at the end-user premises, certified through all the links of the CoC. The supplier has some job to do, once the e-mail from VAREYE is received. In fact, it is necessary to sit in front of a PC and to: � Define the material to supply (this is easy, it might take 1 minute) � Create the transporting company and user in the system (as we saw, approx. 5 minutes) � Create the next link in the CoC that will receive the Bauxite (again company and user, 5 more minutes) � Create an actual supply lot for that material (2 minutes) � Assign that lot to the transportation company defined above (1 minute) Well, for a supply that is usually worth 20.000 to 50.000 tons it does not look like an excessive loss of time. Every time that a new user is created, an automatic e-mail will be sent to the e-mail address provided by the supplier. The concept of Chain of Custody fully applies here: the supplier, the very first custodian, will know perfectly to whom the material will be delivered and who is going to carry out the transportation, so we already have identified the next 2 custodians in the CoC. Aluminium International Today

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…and we made QRC reading as easy as possible! When the captain will load the ship, he will have to install the VAREYE app on his mobile phone, by simply inserting his telephone number and nothing else. As the logistics provider knows perfectly who is going to be responsible for that lot, the information provided is more than enough to identify without margin of doubt the custodian for the trip. Once the VAREYE app is installed (maybe 2 minutes), the captain must scan the QRC provided by the supplier for that lot. The app will record the geolocation of the scanning, the timestamp and will consider the captain as the new custodian of the Bauxite lot.

Usually Bauxite is transported from the mine via ship to the next transformer, that is a refinery, as we saw above. To keep things easy, the supplier will have decided who is the logistics provider for the ship transportation of Bauxite and will have inserted the logistics provider’s contact in the VAREYE database. The contact is normally a front-desk employee but is not going to be the physical custodian; therefore that employee will have the faculty of assigning the custody to the captain (or the first officer) of the ship once the transportation will be organized. We start generating QRCs… The step of creating an actual supply for the Bauxite lot generates a Master QRC: every subsequent QRC generated along the CoC will be linked through this one via a series of unchangeable links, all

As a premium feature, a bit of magic Some companies want to know where their lot is any moment in time during the trip, or want to ensure that the journey does not cross unwanted borders. For ships, this is usually done via the ships transponder (when it is working) or via expensive and dedicated thirdparty GPS transponders that can only be installed in containers, leaving bulk materials like our Bauxite free to travel uncontrolled around the world. This is why we at VAREYE implemented in the smartphone app a premium feature to allow the GPS tracking of the smartphone position during the journey from the port of loading to the port of discharge. This assumes that the smartphone is with the custodian and is active, conditions that can be contractually defined and adhered to. This is state-of-the-art for bulk goods tracking: there’s nothing better in the market! Reach the first transformer – the refinery After a long sea journey, the captain’s vessel will reach the first destination, the receiver refinery for the Bauxite lot. Just to make things complete, at VAREYE we thought that goods on a ship do not always have the same destination. Actually, that lot will be split by 3 different refineries in 3 different parts of the world September/October 2020

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(and well, yes, I lied to you, the supplier did not input just one but three refineries as transformers of Bauxite going to receive that particular lot). Nevertheless, let’s just concentrate on this first one, as the process will be exactly the same. The captain of the vessel will unload at the refinery part of the lot, i.e. 15.000 tons. He will show to the receiver’s user the QRC that was transported within his or her smartphone. Now guess what? The receiver’s user at the refiner had several days to download the VAREYE app, install it, and log-in with his or her credentials. Now all that is needed is to scan the QRC from the captain’s telephone to the user’s telephone and to confirm the weight. This will trigger two actions: � The quantity received by the refinery’s user will be deducted from the original quantity of the lot (i.e., if the original lot was 50.000 tons, now the VAREYE system will know that just 35.000 tons are left with the captain) � The refinery’s user will be the new custodian of the downloaded 15.000 tons

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material source, each with a dedicated QRC, and from them again additional transformed products. All you need is to input the right weight ratios and not a single kilogram of material will be lost, each with a reliable and dedicated QRC assigned to it. In our case, after having written the recipe (from 1 ton of Bauxite you can obtain 0,25 tons of Alumina, or whatever might be the ration for that particular refinery), all that remains to be done is to click on ‘Transform’ and a new inventory of Alumina is created (15.000 tons divided by 4 makes 3.250 tons of Alumina) while the Bauxite inventory is depleted to zero. Our user could also have decided to use now a few kilotons of Bauxite and reserve the rest for later; no problem, the system

Shipping by train Alas, the logistics department just called and declared that no ships are available, therefore the Alumina must be shipped via train to the next user. Well, our refinery user is not alarmed: VAREYE provides for such an extraordinary type of shipment even if usually no custodian is available for public means of transportation (in effect, try to find THE responsible custodian when you ship something by train). As this happens every day, the solution is to maintain the custody of the Alumina until it reaches the next user, so the supply of this particular lot will flag a special box that allows the transportation of materials by keeping the custody on the entity that sends the material until its destination. The assumption here is, that national

That was pretty simple, no? Therefore by now we shall have 35.000 tons of Bauxite continuing their sea journey to other refineries, still with the valid captain as custodian, and 15.000 tons under the custody of the refinery. Now let’s leave the captain to continue the travel and let’s concentrate on the refinery. Let the Bauxite be transformed The new custodian of the 15.000 tons of Bauxite has now the opportunity to add some value to the CoC and for this all that is needed is a PC. After logging-in into the VAREYE system with the provided credentials, the QRC just taken into custody will be visible and can be moved to the ‘production’ area of the system. This is an environment, available only to transformers, that keeps track of the transformation of a raw material (input) to a product (output), in terms of mass balance. What was the recipe for Alumina again? It sounds more complicated than it is, actually. All that the transformer has to do is to fix (normally once and foreverunless there is an ever-changing process ongoing) the ratio between Bauxite as input and Alumina as output. There is a dedicated section on the transformer’s page where it is possible to easily input this information (again, it might take 3 minutes) and if the process is stable, you’ll never touch the recipe again. Obviously, VAREYE is much more flexible than that: the transformer can obtain multiple products from a single raw September/October 2020

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The VAREYE application, available in Google Store for Android and in the App Store for iOS, uses the same login information as the website database. The scanning of Quick Read Codes (QRC) is simple and immediate and just the weight confirmation is required as an input by the user

can easily cope with this and the process remains unchanged. And ready to ship Alumina Now the user just moves the newly created 3.250 tons of Alumina into the supply side (ready for shipment). All good and nice, the refinery is still a custodian: no more of Bauxite, but of Alumina. Unfortunately, some user is waiting for that Alumina, so the refinery must, brokenheartedly, part from it. Again, the refinery knows exactly who is going to transport the Alumina, and where it is going to go – the smelter: those constitute the next links in the CoC, so a few more minutes are needed to set-up the next logistics provider for the whole lot (you can naturally split the lot in as many sub-lots as desired, each with an own QRC) and the receiver of that lot – the user at the smelter. As we saw above, 5 minutes of set-up time and it’s done.

railways will not take custody under a CoC scheme for any material, but will also be controlled and reliable enough (we are talking about a Country system) to be able to renounce being the formal custodian of any material. Nothing bad, anyway: the concept of Chain of Custody is fully maintained as long as the QRC is in the hands of the refinery and until it reaches destination. And the destination, this time, is a smelter. Reaching the second transformer – the smelter After a long journey, the train and its load of Alumina finally reaches the smelter. The VAREYE user at the smelter had all the time to get acquainted with the system but did not want to use the VAREYE app to accept the custody of the incoming Alumina. Actually, his or her preference was to bring the paperwork accompanying the lot to Aluminium International Today

08/09/2020 06:09:20

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10 PRIMARY

the office and to scan the QRC directly from the PC camera (some PCs can do that). This alternative way unfortunately did not work: apparently the camera was defective but no problem! The QRC code is an alphanumeric string of characters created and managed by VAREYE: no one can read it and give it a meaning, except for the VAREYE system. So a simple log-in with the already-received credentials and tipping-in the QRC code would suffice to become the custodian of the 3.250 tons of Alumina, after having confirmed the received weight. Let’s finally make it – Aluminium! The smelter’s custodian of Alumina can decide whether to move it all to the production area within the VAREYE system, or just in part (some smelters sell Alumina, i.e.). Even if the whole lot would be moved to production, but then someone would change their minds, the full lot or part of it could be returned back as Alumina for further shipment to other smelters: VAREYE is extremely tolerant with business and operational decisions and associates to each split part of the lot another QRC that would guarantee in all cases the traceability back to the Bauxite mine. In our case, the whole lot was moved to production. The custodian had to generate a new recipe to convert Alumina to Aluminium: in our case, it would be 1 ton of Alumina becoming 0,5 tons of Aluminium. This is a simplification, because you have losses in the smelter production related to oxidation of Aluminium, formation of slag, changes of process efficiency, losses in fumes and so on. If our custodian would really do things thoroughly, he or she could create a more precise recipe by stating that from 1 ton of Alumina you get 0,5 tons of Aluminium, 0,05 tons of slag, 0,005 tons of other losses and so on. But that’s not really necessary, as the QRCs associated with all other materials would be irrelevant in the CoC. Once the recipe is ready, just tell the system when the transformation happens, and you will get 3.250 tons of Alumina depleted and 1.625 tons of Aluminium generated with their own QRC. One can decide whether Aluminium is generated in the shape of ingots (you need a recipe for this) or in other shapes (just write your own recipe, as you wish), passing through a casting house. And just in the case that you do not really feel like inserting a fixed recipe in the VAREYE system (some Customers have very variable processes depending on the incoming raw materials quality), it is always possible to insert the tons of all products that are manufactured “as they September/October 2020

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are”, just as if each lot would have its own dedicated recipe. Oooopppsss! Really that simple? Surely not! Or not in all cases. In effect, if the smelter just casts Aluminium in the shape of ingots, then just move the Aluminium ingots back to the ‘supply’ area and have them ready for shipment. In this case, the next user (to be inserted along with the next logistics provider) is going to be a casting house, where the ingots are going to be molten again into other shapes. However, in the vast majority of cases liquid Aluminium is transferred to the internal casting house to take a final solid shape, after having been conditioned and mixed with elements like Si, Fe, Mg. Mn and so on.

logistics providers and the next receivers of the slabs and the PFA in the system, so let’s go ahead omitting the transportation phase (truck, train, container, whatever you want is fully covered by VAREYE) and the connected exchange of QRCs via smartphones and let’s concentrate on the stream of slabs, probably among the most complicated transformation ahead of us. Let’s assume that the Rolling Mill custodian accepted the slabs into custody and absorbed the corresponding QRC: from that it is already possible to see the long journey that Bauxite went through before becoming an Aluminium alloy slab, but the best is yet to come! Several transformations in just one factory A Rolling Mill is quite an interesting place for Aluminium transformation. Available

The settings in the VAREYE apps are pre-defined and the user should only input the telephone number. According to the user’s preferences, the settings for the frequency of the GPS readings (the geolocation feature is described in the article) can be modified. The interface is sober and extremely simple to use

Our smelter’s user, well knowledgeable of all this, already prepared several other recipes and, after having produced 1.625 tons of Aluminium, produces from them via the additional recipes many shapes. Actually, he or she decided to produce on a 1 to 1 basis (1 ton of Primary Aluminium to 1 ton of cast house shape – but again, each recipe can contain the dross formation, fire losses, other losses, scrap and so on) a lot of 1.000 tons of sheet ingots (rolling slabs) and a lot of 625 tons of Primary Foundry Alloy (PFA ingots). Each of those 2 lots has a proprietary QRC connected to them, and only now they can be declared ready for shipment and moved into the supply area. Ahead towards the Rolling Mill By now everybody understood that the smelter’s custodian created the next

machines include usually a Hot Mill, some Cold Mills, a stretcher with ageing furnace for plates, a plates saw, a cut-tolength machine, a slitter, a brusher, even a continuous furnace for the production of Body-in-White for automotive industry, and several other machines (i.e. one might have a Continuous Casting line able to produce Aluminium sheet starting from molten metal) to obtain exactly the right product as required by the customer. In effect, from slabs you can obtain hot rolled coils or plates after some passes at the Hot Mill. Plates will follow a route passing i.e. through cooling, stretching, ageing, saw, brushing, packaging. Hot coils after cooling can pass through one or several Cold Mills to decrease the thickness to a few millimetres, then go through heat treatment furnaces and to the Cut-to-Length machine with tension Aluminium International Today

08/09/2020 06:09:26

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leveller and to the packaging of sheets, or pass again through more Cold Mills to decrease the gauge down to a few microns and manufacture i.e. foil for food applications that will pass through a slitter before being packaged. Any of those processes, and several more, can be described in terms of a recipe with the basis of mass balance: i.e., 1 ton of slab can be transformed into approximately 0.7 tons of plates, taking into account all the losses in material generated at the Hot Mill and at the saw. The remaining 0.3 tons is not waste or loss but recyclable material, with its own QRC that can be re-used for further re-melting of Aluminium into the own casting house or sold to third-party recycling units. In our specific case, the final customer, the automotive OEM, was expecting cutto-length sheets, a few millimetres thick, to be delivered to them, so the process would be Hot Mill, cooling, Cold Mill, cooling, heat treatment, cooling, Cut-tolength line, packaging. Although it would be fully possible to define as many recipes as needed to describe each of those process stages, the Rolling Mill custodian decided to cut the story short because there was no change in custody between the entrance of the slabs into the Rolling Mill until the exit as sheets. So he or she just used a recipe stating that 1 ton of Aluminium slab converts into 0.65 tons of Aluminium sheet, packaged and ready for dispatch. Off we go – via truck We are approaching the end of our journey, as the Aluminium sheets, neatly packaged and piled-up, are ready for dispatch at the Rolling Mill to go to the OEM, the enduser. The Rolling Mill custodian already requested VAREYE to connect his or her company with the end-user company, that originated the whole CoC as we saw in the very first chapter. What is missing is just

3rd caption. Once a material is assigned to a Custodian, it is possible to track the journey via the geolocation feature embedded in the VAREYE app, thus allowing the detection of the route, the last know position of the material and, as a premium feature, the trespassing of unwanted borders. The transported QRCs are available at a tap on the screen for easy sharing with the VAREYE app in the receiver’s smartphone

the transportation to the end-user. In fact, the Rolling Mill operates some trucks, but they are not enough to transport swiftly 1.625 x 0.65 = 1056 tons of sheets; at full load, you need 36 trucks at least… So the custodian resorted to another trick available for the VAREYE users; the possibility of splitting shipments among several logistic providers by maintaining the traceability of each single QRC so generated. Also, the custodian wanted to ensure that he could track each single shipment, so flagged the ‘Tracking’ option into each of the sub-lots that were created to allow the full shipment by trucks, each lot being approximately 30 tons heavy (in many Countries just 24 tons are allowed,

but this makes little difference for a supportive Chain of Custody like VAREYE, does it?). Each 30 tons sub-lot was then coupled with a QRC connected to the QRC for the whole of the 1056 tons of Aluminium sheets (just select whether you want to transport by yourself of via a third-party logistics provider, if the case select the provider, state the weight, and insert the telephone number of the truck driver to allow the operation of the VAREYE app – you can upload and attach a number of scanned documents, too, but let’s not consider this as a particularly premium feature: it’s for all users!). Thereafter, each truck driver collecting his or her load should just scan, via the VAREYE app, the QRC provided by the custodian of the Rolling Mill and carry out the transportation to the OEM end-user. The end of the journey The end-user custodian, as set-up by VAREYE, was entitled to receive the incoming sheets and had the VAREYE app already installed and set-up, ready to scan the incoming QRCs. And so it was done, truck by truck, until the full lot from the Rolling Mill was acquired by the automotive OEM. After that, the new and final custodian entered the VAREYE website with the provided credentials and downloaded a copy of the Certificate of Chain of Custody automatically generated by VAREYE when there was no detected interruption in the Chain of Custody, as it was the case. And sent us a copy, thanking VAREYE for the effort. Well, he did not know that the VAREYE team can actually access all transactions, even if we cannot modify them (it would be a breach in the CoC!), so we already knew that the Certificate was emitted and in compliance but it was nevertheless a great satisfaction to receive congratulations from a satisfied customer! �

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Rolling mills revamp - work roll upgrades for extreme speeds By Sorin Tudor*

TIMKEN EUROPE CUSTOMER ENGINEERING A. Introduction and Market Overview Rolling mill owners are under constant pressure to reduce their production costs against the background of a variable global market. A common way to achieve competitive costs is to increase mill productivity. Higher productivity can be obtained by increasing the mill line speed, defined as the linear velocity (m/min) of the strip passing through the four-high (4-HI) mill stand (Fig 1). However, higher mill operating speeds cannot be applied directly in existing mills due to the risk of rapid roll wear or bearing damage. Other restrictions may appear due to drive train (motors, gearboxes and pinion stands) limiting speed. The work roll rotational speed is calculated based on the mill line speed and is a function of the roll barrel diameter. At a certain mill line speed, the work roll has a higher rotational speed than the back-up roll because of the smaller barrel diameter. Consequently, the work roll’s higher rotational speed must be carefully

evaluated against the mill’s maximum designed performance. Mill owners often require support for a work roll “revamp” at extreme operating speeds. B. Theoretical Considerations Selection, design and dimensional aspects related to work roll neck bearings A work roll neck bearing is not initially selected for its rating, as is the case with most bearing applications. Instead, the principal selection parameters (Fig 2) to consider for a bearing are imposed by the mill builder: � Roll barrel diameter – ØB, (nominal and minimum) � Neck diameter – ØN � Barrel length – L � Screw-down distance – X These considerations dictate the minimum remaining space (envelope) left for the chock and bearing. Bearing application engineers start by looking for existing bearings that meet the envelope criteria. Then, from the list of suitable bearings, the engineer selects those that meet the bearing L10 fatigue life

requested by the customer. In addition, the bearing internal geometry is evaluated at the maximum designed load and maximum work roll rotational speed. The bearing internal geometry can be updated or a new bearing designed if there is no existing part number that satisfies the customer’s needs. The loose fit mounting Quick mounting and removal of the chockbearing system are required due to the necessity of frequent work roll changes. Therefore, a loose fit between the four rows of the tapered roller bearings and the roll neck is standard practice at the work roll positions, regardless of the rolling speed. Outer rings must be positively clamped in the chock and inner rings must be mounted with an axial clearance value between 0.5 and 1 mm relative to the bearing inner ring face (Fig 3). Given that the roll neck diameter is smaller than the inner ring bore, the bearing inner rings will naturally tend to move circumferentially relative to the roll neck. The roll neck and inner ring bore essentially have the same linear velocity

Fig 2. Work roll parameters (Top – left chock removed to present work roll neck diameter)

Fig 1. Four-high mill stand

*Specialist Application Engineer – HI Primary Metals Aluminium International Today

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Fig 3. Loose fit mounting

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Fig 4. Bearing inner ring-work roll neck relative movement (Clearance of roll neck to bearing inner ring is exaggerated by purpose in this sketch)

Fig 6. Bearing inner ring face wear

Fig 5 Direct mounting arrangement

where they are in contact with each other. The inner ring’s rotational speed is slightly less than the rotational speed of the roll neck, as illustrated in Fig 4, due to the small diameter difference between the roll neck and inner ring bore. Therefore, it is essential that: � The minimum roll neck diameter guidelines are respected to avoid excessive neck wear due to this relative movement. � Axial clearance is provided between the inner rings and abutting faces of the work roll fillet or retaining rings to allow the two inner rings to freely move and minimize face wear. The direct mounting arrangement The most popular type of roll neck bearing is designed around the direct mounting concept (Fig 5). The inner rings are mounted with a loose fit, ranging from a minimum of 0.050 mm to a maximum of 0.600 mm according to bore size. The “direct mounting” bearing design requires that the outer rings are clamped in place to withstand the axial load induced by the radial load Fr, within the bearing, and to maintain the built-in lateral setting provided by the outer ring September/October 2020

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spacer. This “direct mounting” design permits the inner rings to remain unclamped, which is necessary to enable the inner rings to move circumferentially relative to the roll neck.

face followed by an inner ring fracture. Bearing will be completely damaged if mill is not stopped and bearing replaced. Maintenance time and costs of bearing replacement can become limiting parameters of mill performance.

Speed limitations The limitation of such an arrangement is the speed combined with the rolling load. Loose-fitted TQOW assemblies (see Figure 13 for the TQOW bearing arrangement) have been selected and applied for decades – with satisfactory results – on roll necks of all kinds in mills operating at low to medium speeds. Most of these mills, depending on the loads applied and their environmental conditions, are operating at line speeds up to 800 m/min. We also have experience with mills running at or even over 1000 m/min line speeds. However, when operational speeds increase, the friction and wear between the bearing inner rings and abutting faces of the work roll fillet or retaining rings can cause severe bearing inner ring face wear (Figu 6). Deep pitting corrosion appears here. Heat cracking starts propagate from inner ring front face to bore and back

Timken solution for revamping of work rolls operating at extreme speeds There are several measures Timken suggests in order to prevent excessive wear between the bearing inner rings and abutting faces of the work roll fillet or retaining rings at extreme operating speeds. 1. Set an axial gap varying from 0.5 to 1 mm, depending on the bearing size, between the inner ring face and the mating component (Fig 3). This gap prevents face wear of the abutting faces as they creep on the roll neck. 2. The inner ring backing diameter should be the maximum possible. The outer diameter of the mating components (fillet and retaining rings) should be at the tangency point of the inner ring rib radius. Aluminium International Today

08/09/2020 06:14:04

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Fig 7. Face oil slots on roll neck fillet and retaining rings

Fig 9. Face oil slots on bearing inner ring front face

Fig 8. Typical profile of oil slots found on faces of fillet and retaining rings of old mills

Fig 10. Profile of oil slots provided by Timken on the bearing inner ring front face facesCompany profile

Fig 12. Roll neck fillet ring – isometric view

Fig 11. Work roll design – isometric view

3. The roll neck fillet and retaining rings in older mills generally contain face oil slot features. In these cases, the bearing double inner rings do not need face oil slots (Fig 7). The typical profile of the oil slots found on the faces of fillets and retaining rings in older mills is shown in Fig 8. Timken can evaluate the existing oil slots and provide their number and geometry in conditions where work rolls are operating at extreme speeds. 4. In new mills, the standard is for the oil slots to be located in the bearing inner ring front faces. This allows for lubrication of the contact between the inner ring and the abutting faces (Fig 9). Standard oil slots in Timken bearings are in the bearing inner ring front faces, as shown Fig 10. The edge between slot and face is well blended to minimize wear with respect to the mating component. September/October 2020

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5. The fillet ring and retaining ring should have a minimum hardness of 50 HRC and a preferred hardness of 55 to 58 HRC.

Screw-down distance: 2184.4 mm

6. The contact surface between the bearing inner ring front face and roll neck mating components should be lubricated.

Work roll operating conditions Maximum bending load: 167.4 kN (per bearing) Maximum axial load: 60 kN Maximum line speed: 1036 m/min (=1443 rpm roll speed at min roll diameter)

C. Case Study – Existing Solution and Problem Description This application is performed on work rolls in 4-HI mills. Mill design attributes Mill type: 4-HI mill Work roll nominal barrel diameter: 254 mm Work roll minimum barrel diameter: 228.6 mm Barrel length: 1612.9 mm Roll neck diameter: 139.7 mm Roll neck to barrel ratio: 55%

The isometric view of the work roll is shown in Fig 11.

Roll neck fillet ring Neck ring material: Steel Hardness of 58–60 HRC (comparable with bearing hardness) Lubrication Air-oil system The isometric view of the neck fillet ring is shown in Fig 12. The current design of the fillet ring has sharp oil slot face corners (radius of 0.5 mm) – see Detail A. Aluminium International Today

08/09/2020 06:14:18

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Fig 13. Offer drawing of the four-row tapered TQOGW 48680DGW-902A3 bearing

Fig 14. Computer-modeled application

Fig 16. Gross wear on bearing inner ring Severe adhesion, heat cracking and pitting

Fig 15. Adjusted bearing fatigue life L10a

Timken bearing Fig 13 shows the offer drawing of the work roll bearing used in the application – the four-row tapered TQOGW 48680DGW902A3. Envelope: 139.700x200.025x160.340 (ID x OD x width in mm) Timken rating: C90(4) = 240 kN Computer model The computer-modeled application is shown in Fig 14. The computer model is equivalent to the work roll boundary conditions previously described. L10 life calculations are performed for operating conditions of 75% of maximum load and 75% of maximum speed: Bending load: 0.75 x 167.4 kN = 125.55 kN per bearing Axial load: 0.75 x 60 kN = 45 kN Work roll speed: 0.75 x 1443 rpm = 1082.3 rpm The adjusted bearing fatigue life L10a of the maximum loaded row (Row 3), presented in Fig 15, is 8800 hours. It is

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calculated for operating conditions of 75% of maximum load and 75% of maximum speed and presented for axial load acting in both directions. Due primarily due to the bending of the roll neck, the load sharing and thus life will not be equal across the four rows. Problem description – rapid wear on bearing inner ring faces Our customer accelerated the challenge for bearings when they decided to improve mill productivity by increasing line speed by 20%. An increased line speed such as this, without other mill improvements or changes, generates wear on the bearing inner ring faces, as shown in Fig 16. The customer requested Timken service engineering support. There were no other reported issues with the existing bearing performance. Areas of maximal von Mises stress (Fig 17) are indicated on the fillet ring contact surface (values above 150 MPa locally). These are calculated under maximum operating conditions (maximum bending load of 167.4 kN per bearing and maximum axial load of 60 kN).

D. Case Study – Timken Work Roll Upgrade Solution A mill upgrade was performed following the Timken recommended technical improvements: 1. Design oil slots on the bearing inner ring face (Fig 18). Use the Timken design of blended edges for the inner ring oil slots (face corner radius of 3 mm) to minimize wear with respect to the mating component. Halve the oil slot numbers (8 slots on bearing inner ring compared to 16 slots on neck backing ring) to decrease the contact pressure on the abutting faces. The decrease in the oil slot number is based on Timken internal standards. 2. Remove the oil slots from the work roll neck fillet ring face and increase their backing diameter to the maximum possible. 3. Reduce the neck fillet ring hardness to 55–58 HRC from 58–60 HRC (below the bearing hardness).

Aluminium International Today

08/09/2020 06:14:28

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Fig 18. Blended oil slots on the bearing inner ring

Fig 17. The roll neck fillet ring von Mises stress (before revamp)

Fig 19. Addition of new lubrication nozzle

Fig 20. The roll neck fillet ring von Mises stress (after revamp)

4. Add a new nozzle to lubricate the contact between the inner ring face and the abutting fillet ring (Fig19). 5. Increase the oil kinematic viscosity from ISOVG220 to ISOVG320. The maximal von Mises stress after this revamp is around 60 MPa, both on the roll neck fillet ring (Fig 20) and on the bearing inner ring. It was calculated under the same loadings as Fig 17. Results of mill work roll upgrade for extreme speeds: 1. Decreased the maximum contact stress between the bearing inner rings and abutting faces of the fillet ring from 150 MPa to 60 MPa – a decrease of 60%. 2. By following Timken recommendations, the bearing inner ring face wear significantly decreased. The customer needed to replace only six bearings the year following the revamp, instead of the 25 replaced the year prior to the revamp.

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3. The mill operator succeeded in increasing mill productivity by 20%, as planned. E. Summary and Conclusions Rolling mill owners must stay competitive against the background of a variable global market and increase their mill line speeds. This increase comes with technical challenges that need to be addressed. The Timken Company has extensive expertise and offers both engineering support for mill design optimization and bearings with improved features for higher speed. Such measures ensure mill performance under these more demanding operating conditions. � Comment The material presented here focuses on face wear between the bearing inner ring and the mating components (fillet and retaining rings). Other aspects, like roll neck wear, should be considered as well when selecting and validating work roll bearings.

Acknowledgments The author would like to thank The Timken Company for permission to publish this study.

References 1. Harris, T. and Kotzalas, M. (2007), “Rolling Bearing Analysis – Advanced Concepts of Bearing Technology” 2. Association of Iron and Steel Engineers (1985), “The Making, Shaping and Treating of Steel,” 10th Edition 3. The Metals Society (1978), - “Flat Rolling: A Comparison of Rolling Mill Types” 4. Zygmunt Wusatowski (1969), “Fundamentals of Rolling” 5. ISO 281 (2007), Rolling Bearings – Dynamic Load Ratings and Rating Life 6. Timken Engineering Manual – Metals Industry Edition ( 2013) - The Timken Company / Order No. 10688 7. Timken Metals Product Catalog, (2014) - The Timken Company / Order No. 10675

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08/09/2020 06:14:40

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Aluminium Foil: Rolling with the times With a history stretching back almost 120 years aluminium foil, and the companies which roll it, have had to deal with many changing situations. Some have brought challenges – the current COVID-19 pandemic is certainly one of those – and changes in taste, design and use, as well as cultural shifts, such as the move towards a more sustainable world, where resource efficiency, recycling and circularity are equally as important now as the functionality of a material, such as aluminium foil. Of course there have been many benefits too. The fact that foil is easily recyclable gives it the best credentials in today’s environmentally conscious world. Aluminium foil is blessed with many other characteristics which make it one of the most useful materials. It is light, decorative, printable, easily deformable, with high barrier properties and conductivity. This makes it an excellent choice for many applications, packaging in particular, but also in the automotive and construction sectors where its use as an insulator or heat disperser has enabled major advances in the efficiency of the engines, exhausts and buildings it protects. But aluminium foil is certainly not immune to the changes in economic or market circumstances, both long or short term. Certainly, at the moment, the disruption to global trade caused by the coronavirus has seen dramatic falls in demand for automotive and construction use, while, here in Europe, the focus on Aluminium International Today

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safe and hygienic packaging for food and pharmaceuticals has sent demand spiralling upward. In recent years, characterised by steady if not spectacular growth, European aluminium foil rollers have had to deal with weak internal demand in domestic markets due, by and large, to flat economic growth after the financial crisis and also the influx of cheap imports from Asia being dumped into the market. Impact Since the start of 2020, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on both supply and demand. Several production facilities were closed temporarily and many customer facilities likewise. Total deliveries fell by 2.0% in the first six months (Q2: 4.5%) with thicker gauges, typically used for semi-rigid containers, technical or other applications, particularly affected, declining 4.4% in the first half (Q2: 13%). Exports too were steeply down, by 14% in the first half of 2020. These figures are collected by the European Aluminium Foil Association (EAFA). Thinner gauges, used mainly for flexible packaging and household foils, were much more resilient, thanks to high demand for these products. Indeed deliveries in Europe actually increased slightly in Q2 (0.3%), helping total deliveries in the first half of 2020 for all gauges to show a modest increase (0.5%) domestically. But the medium to long term impact

of the pandemic on demand from the automotive and aerospace industries has yet to be fully realised and, according to Guido Aufdemkamp, Executive Director of EAFA, the current spike in packaging demand will not fully compensate for decreased demand in these and other segments. Optimistic The sector is more optimistic than at the beginning of the pandemic, however, according to EAFA President Bruno Rea. The fundamentals of the industry are sound and European aluminium foil rollers are agile and used to dealing with fluctuating circumstances, even if they are unwelcome! Because of the nature of many end user customers, such as packaging converters, the hygienic workplace practices were and are already well established, so disruption was less than for other sectors. Factoring in social distancing too, caused fewer problems and the result has been that aluminium foil rollers have largely been spared from outbreaks of the virus. Focus on Sustainability The focus may have switched, for now, from issues such as resource efficiency and recycling – while food safety, hygienic distribution and security are paramount. But sustainability, which has, for so long, dominated alufoil and other materials development and use, is regarded by manufacturers of aluminium foil as September/October 2020

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26 ROLLING

just as important as ever. Indeed there may be lessons to be learnt from the COVID-19 response to help create a more coordinated and collective response to the issue of climate change in general. So it could be an opportunity to add some momentum to sustainable development. In truth, the work on this aspect of aluminium foil technology never stops, as it is part of the DNA of the sector by now. A good example of new recycling potential is the work being done by ENVAL in Huntingdon, UK. Previously it has not been easy to recycle laminates made with a combination of plastics and aluminium foil. But this is now achievable using a new, unique proprietary pyrolysis solution capable of handling low-density packaging waste. The process is clean, efficient and economical for both postconsumer and industrial waste, says the company. The process is quite unique, being able to operate on a smaller and decentralised scale. It is capable of recycling plastic aluminium laminates by splitting them into aluminium with a low-carbon footprint and high-value oil which can be used for producing plastic materials again. This should transform the waste sector from within by changing the perception of aluminium plastic laminates and unlocking a strong and profitable circular economy. For other types of valuable aluminium fraction, within mixed packaging collection systems such as aluminium composite packaging and other foil-based packaging, the industry, together with the equipment manufacturers, has focused its efforts on developing various aluminium sorting techniques. Eddy current separators (ECS) and detection-ejection systems including advanced multi-sensor and robot sorting technologies, are able to extract aluminium from mixed materials flows. In a typical European sorting centre September/October 2020

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using an ECS system, which focuses on medium grain sizes of 80-300mm, a recovery rate of 60% is possible. But adding an additional ECS system, capable of separating fractions between 20 and 80mm, leads to an increase in recovery to as much as 90%. The further addition of an Induced Sorting Separator (ISS), for super fine grain sizes smaller than 20 mm, then increases the recovery rate to 94%. (Source: HTP Study 2018) In addition, the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) has been in existence since 2012. Certification to the ASI Standards, which were first published at the end of 2014, enables the aluminium industry, as well as the users of aluminium, to demonstrate their commitment to social, environmental and ethical standards. The first products such as beverage cartons using certified aluminium foil and others are increasingly being introduced into markets. New formats Of course the fact we have plastics/ aluminium laminates at all is a reflection of the changing world that foil rollers have had to adapt to over the course of time. In just one example, pet food packaging, the can quickly gave way to the aluminium tray and lid, which in turn has been accompanied by the pouch, made from a foil laminate. Likewise who would have thought, even twenty years ago, that the coffee sector would be â&#x20AC;&#x153;dominatedâ&#x20AC;? by aluminium pods rather than vacuum packs, or that a whole industry has grown up supplying homes, restaurants, bars and almost everywhere else with tea lights in small aluminium containers. The ongoing barbecue trend is another market offering opportunities for the sector. The rather traditional household foil benefits from its unique properties such as heat conductivity and strength

appreciated by both professional and amateur grillers preparing delicious meals. All these products also present new, or at least interesting, challenges in the areas of recycling and sourcing of sustainable supplies of aluminium. While, as we have seen, programs to deal with foil-based laminates are being established, there are now initiatives to collect used tea light containers in some parts of Europe. For coffee pods various collection platforms are underway. Agility Over its long history aluminium foil has adapted to changes in the markets, formats, fashions and designs as well as embracing technological advances to produce better, thinner, stronger and more versatile foil. These materials, and it is wrong to say there is just one as many alloys and coatings exist which change the function and performance, are truly agile. Aluminium foil rollers have taken most things in their stride. But no one is going to claim 2020 will be a great year for the sector. It is difficult to work around circumstances which stops most economic activity in its tracks for several months. Like most businesses, it is how to deal with these difficult times which shows their true resilience. In fact aluminium foil rollers reported production continued throughout the first half of the year largely uninterrupted. Whether that can be sustained is dependent on whether or not the markets they supply can recover and how quickly. History shows that rollers will continue to innovate and meet the challenges thrown at them, whether regulatory or market driven. Like a river, the aluminium foil sector will continue to roll on. ďż˝ Contact www.alufoil.org

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Mill vibration phenomena during cold rolling By Dan Miller*

All rolling mills and their ancillary equipment, such as the motor drives and gearboxes, will experience some degree of vibration as the rotating parts all have clearances that change with temperature and with use. These will become problematic when they start to impact the product quality or the machine parts themselves. The mill stand is basically a system of masses and springs and so can be defined as a second-order system â&#x20AC;&#x201C; one which is inherently oscillatory. Thus, the most damaging modes of mill vibration occur when the specific natural resonances of the mill stand are involved. If none of the structural resonances are excited, then the vibration amplitude is simply a consequence of the way the mill responds to a cyclic exciting force acting within the mill. These can cause surface damage in

the same way a work roll mark imprints a defect on the strip at a constant length interval.

Fig 1. A simulated 3-dimensional gauge trace for a 0.5m section of sheet product. It shows +/-5% gauge variation due to third octave gauge chatter

Torsional chatter This simpler type of mill vibration is found in all mills. It is a forced vibration due to roll eccentricity or drive train misalignment and so occurs at roll rotation frequencies. These frequencies are usually lower than any of the mill stand resonant frequencies at up to about 30Hz . Any gauge variation is a result of the stiffness response of the mill to the disturbance. In some cases, particularly at higher speeds, it is possible to worsen this vibration by excitation of torsional resonances of the main, unwind or rewind drives. If the mode involves a fluctuation of work roll speed, then there may also be interaction with lubricant creating instabilities in the roll bite. This

*Senior Process Consultant, Innoval Technology www.innovaltec.com September/October 2020

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Third Octave Gauge Chatter A third octave chatter mode involves the movement of the upper rolls in opposition to the lower rolls. This can produce significant gauge variation and can even cause strip breaks. This is due to excitation of one of the natural resonances of the mill stand. Commonly these natural resonances have frequencies between 100 and 150Hz, but sometimes as high as 300Hz. These frequencies are much higher than the bandwidth of most gauge control systems. The measurement of exit thickness is an average over several vibration cycles and so is not seen by the gauge control system. The onset of gauge chatter vibration occurs at high rolling speed and the amplitude of vibration will rise very rapidly (in less than a second). At this vibration frequency the chatter will be audible. Without vibration monitoring equipment, this audible noise is often the only indication to the mill operator that the mill is vibrating. They may also feel some lower frequency modes in the ground supporting the mill housing. Usually one can only reduce the chatter by slowing the mill speed. During gauge chatter, the gauge variation will be fairly uniform and in-phase across the strip width. Careful off-line thickness measurement of the final product is often the only way to detect it. Fig 1 shows a simulated gauge variation produced by vibration with several vibration cycles per metre length of strip. The images in Fig 2 (below) show the typical rolling mill resonances that can

become excited to produce gauge chatter. The most common mode for a 4-high mill is shown in Fig 2(a) and involves the top two rolls moving vertically in anti-phase against the bottom two rolls. The mill stand housing is also involved in the vibration mode. There is very little deflection of the work roll barrels. This explains why the gauge variation is similar at all positions across the strip width. Third octave chatter is peculiarly problematic because it is caused through a self-excited mechanism. Self-excited systems begin to vibrate without an external stimulus. The amplitude increases until some non-linear effect limits any further increase. The motion itself creates the alternating force that sustains the motion. It stops when the motion stops. Common examples include machine tool chatter and the sounds from some musical instruments. Other examples include aeroplane wing tip flutter, chimney sway and bridge vibration. A good example of a selfexcited bridge vibration is the famous Tacoma Narrows bridge that collapsed in 1940 due to high wind speed. Though third octave chatter can be triggered by impulses from other components at the right frequency, the cold mill will vibrate without an independent external cyclic force to excite it. This means that, during gauge chatter, there is a feedback mechanism that provides a sustaining force to increase the mill vibration amplitude which is a consequence of the vibration motion itself.

phenomenon is sometimes referred to as torsional chatter. Mill chatter Natural resonances of the rolling mill involve translational motion of the rolls. This typically occurs at frequencies greater than 50Hz. Of the large number of these resonant modes that could become excited during rolling, only a few will cause damage to the metal in the mill or the surfaces of the rolls. Excitation of these specific damaging modes are the typical cause of the phenomena known as third octave gauge chatter and fifth octave roll and strip chatter marking. The amplitude of the vibration increases rapidly with strip speed and so is observed when mills are pushed towards their maximum designed speeds. Preventing the chatter becoming unstable often results in slowing the mill down, resulting in a significant productivity loss. Aluminium International Today

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Fig 2. Typical mode shapes of rolling mill resonances that become excited during third octave gauge chatter. (a) shows the most common mode with a frequency between 100 and 150Hz and (b) shows a less common higher frequency mode. The lines represent the central axes of the rolls and housing frames in a 4-high cold mill

September/October 2020

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reflected in marking of the backup roll, Fig 4. Solving mill vibration problems There are various ways to solve these problems and increase the threshold rolling speed of cold mills. Innoval has a Mill Vibration Model which is a finite element (FE) based model which predicts the frequencies for the various vibration modes of the mill. Once the resonant frequency is known, then the source for the excitation can be identified more readily and remedial action taken. For third octave chatter, monitoring accelerometer signals around that frequency allows the initial stages of the chatter to be detected before any significant gauge variation occurs. The mill speed can be constrained to prevent strip gauge performance going out of tolerance or get to the point where there is significant strip or even work roll damage. Different techniques involving decoupling of the entry tension from the mill stand or active compensation of the work roll movements (both at the correct frequency and phase) have been used to extend the usable maximum mill speed. Rolling mill vibration problems are faced by the entire metal rolling industry. The model uses available mill data to predict all the key natural resonant modes of vibration of any rolling mill. This information, together with careful monitoring and maintenance, is the key to avoiding the problems associated with these natural phenomena. ďż˝

Fig 3

Fig 4

This mechanism has its origins in the mechanical deformation of material in the roll bite. It is a consequence of the continuity of mass flow through the stand. A change in exit thickness results in a change in the strip entry speed, which alters the entry tension. A change in entry tension causes a change in rolling load which produces a change in strip thickness. The feedback mechanism is purely mechanical, Fig 3. The gain of this self-exciting feedback loop is dominated by the speed of the strip in the mill. So, increasing strip speed will make the mill unstable and will feed energy into this mode of mill vibration. This explains why rolling mills prone to gauge chatter vibration exhibit the problem suddenly as the speed is increased above a threshold value. Other factors such as the material being rolled, the rolling conditions and the natural damping of the mill stand resonance will all affect the threshold rolling speed for vibration. However, these are difficult to change, and none vary as significantly as the mill speed during a specific rolling pass. Third octave gauge chatter is seen in September/October 2020

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single stand cold mills and cold tandem mills. However, the latter is a little more complex due to interaction between the stands via the interstand strip. The rolling speeds on cold mills suffering from this type of gauge chatter vibration are often constrained for certain products. For these products the rolling speeds are kept below the threshold speed at which mill vibration occurs. Sometimes this is with the use of on-line vibration monitoring equipment. Consequently, there can be a significant loss of productivity if the mill is a bottleneck machine. Fifth octave chatter This vibration mode involves the work rolls moving together between the backup rolls, Consequently, there is no gauge variation, but instead there is surface marking of the strip. The frequencies for this vibration mode are much higher up to 800 Hz. This mode can be initiated by defects in rotating components such as bearings and gears, but also defects in the work roll grinding process. The mode of vibration is shown in Fig 5. The strip surface marking can be

Fig 5

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Assan Alüminyum’s sustainability-oriented approach guides it through the pandemic Assan Alüminyum, a subsidiary of Kibar Holding and one of the 3 largest aluminium foil producers in Europe, pulls through the Covid-19 pandemic period with its committment to sustainability principles. Keeping sustainability at the core of its business, the company is not only focused on being environmentally friendly and socially responsible, but it also focuses on corporate governance principles, which are especially critical through the difﬁcult period, when the global pandemic crisis is prevalent.

Keeping the wheels turning “The whole world is going through challenging times” states Assan Alüminyum’s General Manager and Global Aluminium Foil Roller Initiative (GLAFRI) President Göksal Güngör. “We, at Assan Alüminyum, are aware of our important responsibility during these times. We are a signiﬁcant link in the food supply chain, supplying packaging rawmaterials, where most of our aluminium foil products are being used. As sanitation became a growing concern during this extraordinary period, packaged goods have become ever more important. Therefore, despite some supply chain September/October 2020

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disruptions, we had to keep the wheels turning by producing and exporting, while ensuring the good health of our employees and our business partners. This is where our ‘Life Safety’ culture, which we have implemented many years ago, proved to be very useful. We already have an occupational health and safety culture, which aims for our employees to act safely and to stay healthy, not only at the workplace, but also in their daily lives. The good health of our employees, our business partners and their families have always been our top priority. We have taken very strict measures from day one, following the directives and suggestions of the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization, ranging anywhere from travel bans to contact tracing, from various physical distancing measures to home-office opportunities for office employees. We have successfully been able to control the spread of the virus within our company as a result of these precautionary measures and practices that we have put in effect; and consequently we have been qualified to receive the ‘TSE Covid-19 Safe Production Certificate’, by fulfilling the strict requirements determined by the Turkish Standards Institute.” Sustainability-oriented approach Corporate governance, one of the main pillars of sustainability, has also become an essential tool for corporate companies, during this period dominated by unforeseen circumstances. As corporate

risk is being managed professionally by a dedicated department at Assan Alüminyum, the company was able to react quickly to rapidly changing conditions, whether it’s operations- or marketrelated, resulting in minimal disruption in business. Flexibility is one of the core values of Assan Alüminyum, along with reliability, innovation and sustainability. All stakeholders are also in need of ﬂexible solutions and quick actions to reduce supply risks during extraordinary periods, such as the one experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic. The sustainabilityoriented perspective of the company was therefore helpful in supplying stakeholders with customized solutions on various issues. Transparency is another essential part of Assan Alüminyum’s sustainability focus. General Manager Göksal Güngör emphasizes that a regular, consistent and transparent corporate communication was executed on every step of the way. “The senior management of the Kibar Group and I, as the main spokesperson of Assan Alüminyum, have shared every update and action with all of our employees and business partners transparently. It is important to stay united and to act together through hard times, as this is what lies at the heart of sustainability, as opposed to an ‘every man for himself’ approach.” states Güngör. Renewable energy production While the Covid-19 pandemic became a major topic of discussion and an issue Aluminium International Today

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health, safety and environment etc. There is also an employee suggestion system, within the Assan Production Excellence Model, where both ofﬁce employees and ﬁeld employees are encouraged to make new suggestions on various issues and processes, including sustainability. This allows for a collaborated effort and a raised awareness about sustainability overall. As a result of this dedication and these collaborated efforts, the company aims to become a role model for all of its business partners and to encourage them to be act more sustainably as well.

of crisis during 2020, the climate crisis continues to become a major global concern. The world’s resources are continuously being used up, due to increasing urbanization, scarcity of energy resources and excess consumption. Therefore, as the future of our planet and the people come under question, renewable energy becomes more and more significant each year, as a major contributor to environmental sustainability. Assan Alüminyum produces clean electrical energy, equivalent to its annual consumption, in its own renewable energy power plant. Additionally, as the company’s sustainability motto of “producing the future, without wasting it” suggests, Assan Alüminyum constantly strives to produce less waste, less emissions and to consume less energy by developing new energy-savings projects every year. The in-house recycling facility also makes positive contributions to the company’s sustainability strategy. Assan Alüminyum aims to reduce its overall carbon footprint through all of these activities. Reducing carbon emissions Assan Alüminyum manages its environmental sustainability issues in compliance with the ISO 50001 Energy Management and the ISO 14001 Environmental Management Certificates that it holds. As flat-rolled aluminium production uses a considerable amount of electricity and natural gas, the optimization and reduction of these consumptions need to be managed professionally, with Aluminium International Today

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dedicated teams. The Energy Management Team at Assan Alüminyum develops new sustainability projects every year. The projects completed in the last six years alone reduced the company’s carbon footprint at a level that is equivalent to the carbon absorption of over 1 million 500 thousand trees. While the company’s production expands every year, its energy consumption per ton has decreased by almost 4% over the last 2 years. Güngör states that they will keep setting ambitious targets in this respect, aiming to reduce the carbon footprint of the company to even lower levels. As sustainability is one of the core values of Assan Alüminyum, the sustainability commitment of the company is supported by the dedication of the 1500+ employees, who have responsibilities in different functions, such as investment, procurement, occupational

Aluminium is ‘green’ by nature Göksal Güngör states, “Aluminium is a very versatile material, with many extraordinary qualities such as lightness, excellent barrier properties, flexibility and durability. These qualities make it the material of choice in many different industries, such as automotive, packaging, construction, HVAC etc. Most importantly, aluminium is a key contributor to sustainability in many different applications. Its lightness allows for reduced carbon emissions in transport sectors, its excellent barrier to light and moisture makes it a superior raw-material for packaging solution applications, allowing it to prevent food waste by prolonging the shelf life of food products and so on. Therefore, with growing concern over the sustainability of our world and its resources being quickly used up, aluminium proves to be an excellent product, offering significant benefits for our future. Aluminium’s infinite recyclability makes it a key contributor to sustainability and circular economy. Because of all of its superior qualities, we firmly believe that the aluminium industry contributes positively to many different sectors, in an effort to build a more sustainable future. Therefore, with the strength that our 1500 employees give us, we will keep investing and expanding in our industry, while constantly seeking more ways to contribute to circular economy.” � September/October 2020

07/09/2020 06:32:01

34 ADVERTORIAL - ELVAL

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UNLOCKING TOMORROW’S POTENTIAL WITH ELVAL SAFEGUARDING THE FUTURE THROUGH STRATEGIC SUSTAINABILITY

Four-stand tandem hot finishing mill BUILDING ON HISTORICAL SUCCESS Elval is one of the largest producers of flat rolled aluminium globally, having fifty years of history and long-standing rolling expertise. From 2015 through 2019, the company has invested over €300 million in new equipment and R&D for capacity expansions and quality improvements. These investments are apparent at the Oinofyta plant where major projects include a cast house, slitting, tension-levelling, and finishing lines as well as state-of-the-art lacquering and pre-treatment lines. Elval, always committed to environmental protection, operates a state-of-the art Wastewater Treatment Plant, with the capacity to fully recycle the treated wastewater, operating as a Zero Liquid Discharge facility. It includes a robust, multi-staged process which makes use of advanced, cutting-edge wastewater treatment technology. The quality of the treated water has such chemical and physical properties which make it suitable to be either disposed to a water-receiving body or to be recycled back to the production process, resulting to fresh water conservation. Furthermore, the company has deployed de-lacquering furnaces, which enable the recycling of coated aluminium scrap, such as used beverage cans. Investment in new technologies has helped Elval build a sustainable global footprint. The company exports over 80 percent of its annual 300,000 tons of production to more than 80 countries worldwide. Elval’s customer base is broad and includes established leaders in packaging, transportation, architecture and other demanding industries, specialized in novel aluminium applications. The company works with these customers to develop customised supply chain solutions and utilizes advanced software scheduler to provide enhanced flexibility and the fastest response to changing market conditions. In addition, a range of logistics options is available which allow crucial just-in-time deliveries. TURBOCHARGING CORPORATE INVESTMENT In 2018, Elval kicked off a €150m investment initiative to strengthen its equipment, technology, and infrastructure. This included the installation of a four-stand tandem aluminium hot finishing mill, commissioned by SMS Group. It is the most modern September/October 2020

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tandem mill in Europe, featuring max. thickness output 12.5mm, max. width output 2.600mm and installed power 33MW. This new hot mill that went live as scheduled in May 2020, despite the coronavirus restrictions, represents a major step change in Elval’s capacity. Combined with additional investments spanning the next five years, including an already ordered brand new 6-high aluminium cold rolling mill, Elval is expected to triple its production capacity and pave the way for new demanding markets, such as automotive and aerospace. “The tandem hot mill will make our existing processes more efficient and will introduce exciting and sustainable innovations to our portfolio,” explains Varouchas. “The in-house production of advanced flat rolled aluminium ensures the entire process is tightly controlled internally and no outsourcing is needed.” At the same time, the tandem mill significantly enhances the factory’s energy efficiency, reducing specific energy consumption and total carbon footprint, contributes to saving valuable resources and time, while also optimizes the metallurgical process as a whole. ADDING INGENUITY Elval’s vision for long-term success relies on its ability to innovate and on the importance of customizing products and services to the individual needs of each customer. The Elval Technology Centre, a purpose-built R&D facility, is dedicated to materializing this vision. “Elval’s world-class metallurgists and engineers collaborate with our clients to develop sophisticated solutions for every potential challenge,” says Andreas Mavroudis, Elval’s Technology-R&D Director. “This partnership between customers, our technology, innovation experts and independent scientific bodies gives us a platform to showcase our excellence in flat rolled aluminium technology and supports our ongoing success in bespoke product development.” Elval develops ground-breaking alloys and processes at Elkeme, the Hellenic Research Centre of Metals SA. This central R&D operation for the wider corporate group has supported the Greek metallurgical industry through a range of state-of-theAluminium International Today

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art laboratories for over 30 years. Recent technical innovations have focused on enhancing formability, increasing strength and improving energy efficiency. Elval’s product development solutions, comprise a custom made portfolio of advanced coating systems for beverage and food cans, high-strength alloys for marine and land transportation as well as innovative new alloys, such as clad materials for heat exchangers used in the automotive, air conditioning and refrigeration industries. “Our multi-level R&D project management delivers increased product and process efficiency, quality and yield. This adds value across the aluminium chain and boosts the long-term benefit for our shareholders,” concludes Mavroudis. THE FOUNDATIONS FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE As consumer awareness related to sustainability benefits of aluminium packaging has grown, recycling has become more integral to Elval’s long-term strategy. The company has invested heavily in specialized equipment that enables it to delacquer and recycle used beverage cans. Elval even has its own used beverage can centre, ElvalCanal. The centre collects aluminium cans for recycling, raises environmental awareness and provides educational programs to local communities, schools and wider society. Every year, more than 150 primary schools visit ElvalCanal’s operations to enjoy experiential information and training, environmental awareness events, art exhibitions and a range of other activities. Elval’s aim is to promote aluminium recycling and increase the percentage of cans collected so that the metal stays in a sustainable closed recycling loop. As part of this commitment to sustainability, the company has joined the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI), the global, multi-stakeholder, non-profit standards-setting and certification organization. In July 2020 Elval certified the cast house, rolling, coil coating and finishing operations of its production facility at Oinofyta Greece to the ASI Performance Standard and became a Certified Production and Transformation member. “We’re excited to join ASI so as to further promote the Aluminium International Today

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ADVERTORIAL - ELVAL 35

“As the reality of the global environmental challenges becomes apparent, Elval is looking towards new ways of addressing the associated dilemmas. Here, Lampros Varouchas, Managing Director of Elval, fully embracing the principles of sustainable growth explains why human resources, state-of-the-art facilities, R&D, responsible production and social responsibility are the strategic drivers that enable Elval

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sustainability principles that drive all our activities. Our membership gives us a great opportunity to align our efforts with other ASI members. Together we can advance responsible production, environmental protection, and material stewardship throughout the aluminium value chain,” adds Varouchas. “We always have our core values of sustainable development, employee health and safety, environmental protection and social wellbeing at the heart of our strategy. The most important factor to our success is the contribution of Elval’s employees, who, with highly specialized expertise, teamwork and dedication, make our vision for steady and continuous growth a reality.” September/October 2020

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Digitalization and improving management of the value chain The challenges (and the opportunities) It is no secret that many industrial companies rely heavily on spreadsheets and a de-centralized way of planning, sourcing, and managing logistics. This way of working has given rise to the creation of information silos across organizations. Supply chain executives lack complete end-to-end visibility and are hindered from taking early preventive action that could reduce logistics costs from fuel, freight, demurrage, and storage. Even more challenging is the ability for companies to adapt to supply disruptions. Today, there is signiﬁcant potential for the aluminium industry to take a step forward simply by replacing manual forms of information sharing between stakeholders. The collaborative nature of technology is opening up new opportunities that are limited in traditional spreadsheets and eliminating the need for decisions to be made from different copies or different versions of the truth. Software solutions that are supported in the cloud have opened up the era of contextual collaboration and empower teams to exchange information in realtime and operate from single versions of the truth. The ability to see the impact of a change in real-time and prompt stakeholders to react proactively with Aluminium International Today

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critical decisions is a key opportunity for the supply chain going forward. Furthermore, improving collaboration should not stop internally. Secure cloud-based solutions supporting external collaboration offer opportunities to improve the ﬂow of information with customers and can afford companies a disruptive competitive advantage. While spreadsheets are powerful for viewing historical data, from a supply chain perspective we are looking into the future and making decisions with information that is available right now. Solutions that stand out from the rest should not only be capable of modelling that data, but of using it to develop predictions, alternate scenarios and suggest the best course(s) of action to stakeholders. With automation and algorithms holding the potential to reduce manual workloads and duplicate entry, time spent on repetitive tasks will be reduced and freed up time for more valueadded work.

Modern technology offers the ability to move from stale data to a live view where information flows continually. Information that is then brought to life with the benefit of logic, rules, and alerts. This should be seen as a key opportunity for companies to move from delayed reactions to a more proactive approach to planning, scheduling, and execution. Proactive responses as the norm will give rise to the creation of predictive logistics models. Planners and schedulers will be able to harness the power of digital platforms to predict risk and proactively adjust plans with the confidence that all stakeholders are notified of adjustments and consequences in real-time. While digital platforms hold and control data and provide actionable insight execution remains dependent on human action. Digital platforms should not be considered as an alternative to humans but embraced as a means of empowering us to perform more efficiently. With technology providing sufficient checks and balances to data and auditing decisions, human error can be largely mitigated, and the audited information can be used as an intel for further improvements. This should be the target state for any industrial company seeking to improve their supply chains through digitalization. September/October 2020

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HOW ALUMINUM BAHRAIN B.S.C. GAINED A COMPETITIVE EDGE BY DIGITIZING MARITIME LOGISTICS WITH CARGOVALUE BY KLAVENESS DIGITAL Aluminium Bahrain B.S.C. (Alba) consistently ranks as one of the largest and most modern aluminium smelters in the world. Alba is based in The Kingdom of Bahrain situated in the Arabian Gulf and is a major contributor to the social, industrial, and economic development of the Kingdom of Bahrain, currently employing over 3000 people and importing major raw material dry bulk of about 3 million metric tonnes annually. The Solution In 2015, Norwegian shipowner Torvald Klaveness conducted a case study with Aluminium smelters in the Middle East and Arabian Gulf that quickly revealed substantial savings can be made through improved collaboration, increased transparency, and access to real-time data. What started as an eye-opening case study, gradually developed into a vision of a digital logistics platform capable of changing the way stakeholders in the industry interact by replacing manual processes and spreadsheets with real-time collaboration and actionable insight.

Alba was one of the ﬁrst companies to adopt the CargoValue platform. After testing the concept with Alba and other clients in the Aluminium industry, Klaveness established a dedicated technology company to spearhead the development of the logistics platform. The company set out to build a platform

that would allow Alba and other industrial receivers to efﬁciently plan and manage their shipping schedule and inventory across terminals and commodities in one uniﬁed solution. With valuable feedback and insight from Alba during the development phase,

Klaveness Digital successfully launched the Software as a Service (SaaS) solution CargoValue. Today, Alba has managed to replace manual processes and spreadsheets with CargoValue; streamlining their business processes and improving the overall efficiency of their supply chain. The Result Chief Executive Officer at Alba, Mr. Ali Al Baqali, said that they were looking for a product that would help them stay abreast of the live status of their inbound major raw material vessels for better inventory planning and reducing/avoiding demurrage. The team at Klaveness Digital is proud to have provided a solution that helps Alba more efficiently plan its shipments and inventory and values our strong partnership for the future. We look forward to extending our partnership with Alba and to continue working with the aluminium industry on its digitalization journey. �

“We now have real-time satellite tracking system on the performing vessels right from the start of voyage until arrival in Bahrain port, helping us with inventory planning, avoiding clashes during berth, live updates on ETA, etc.” “…information such as cargo value based on exact quantity loaded, vessel speed, course of voyage, etc. are also available. We stay alerted to vessel anchorage and any Mr. Ali Al Baqali, Chief Executive Ofﬁcer at Alba

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Aluminium International Today

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40 CIRCULAR ECONOMY

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Focus on: Circular Aluminium Action Plan Nadine Bloxsome* spoke to Coline Lavorel, Director of Public Affairs and Communications at European Aluminium, about the plans to achieve aluminium circularity by 2030. Why did European Aluminium develop the Circular Aluminium Action Plan? Circularity is a strong component of the EU Commission’s proposed European Green Deal, and its ambitions to mitigate climate change and avoid CO2 emissions. The aluminium industry is committed to helping to deliver the European Green Deal, building on its longstanding commitment to sustainability. Our goal is to achieve the full potential of aluminium circularity by 2030. We developed the Circular Aluminium Action Plan to provide European policy makers with a roadmap to help the industry make this ambition a reality, from a legislative point of view but

also to prioritise investments in waste collection and sorting centres and separation technologies to recycle more and better. In addition, the COVID-19 crisis makes it even more important to have a clear strategy for our sector. Europe is over-dependent on imports of essential materials, that are so necessary for the twin digital and green transition such as aluminium. The World Bank has recently concluded that the world’s production of 13 strategic metals – including aluminium - will need to increase by up to 500% by 2050 to meet the growing demand for clean energy technologies.

What are the different scenarios for aluminium recycling by 2030 and 2050? In the action plan, we set out different scenarios based on a “business as usual” model and a “high recycling” model in which we have the right policy framework in place to enable more recycling, both from a quantity and quality perspective. In the “high recycling” scenario, the amount of post-consumer aluminium available for recycling will multiply by almost three by 2050, from 3.6 million tonnes per year in 2019 to 8.6 million tonnes by 2050. This means half of Europe’s demand for aluminium could be supplied through post-consumer recycling by midcentury. Increasing the share of recycled aluminium instead of relying on carbon-intensive primary imports makes sense from an economic and environmental perspective. Aluminium recycling could reduce CO2 emissions by up to 39 million

tonnes per year by 2050 compared to today, which corresponds to a reduction of 46 percent of CO2 per year in 2050. This is a very concrete contribution of our sector to the European Green Deal.

www.european-aluminium.eu September/October 2020

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What can policy makers do to increase recycling rates? While the previous “Waste Package” in 2015 was very much about waste management, the European Commission’s new Circular Economy Action Plan presented in March this year has a stronger focus on sustainable consumption and production, product design and consumer awareness. This is a good signal because it shows that the political framework is also ready to embrace a shift from a linear to circular ecosystems and business models. The aluminium industry did not wait for the legislation to be circular and should benefit from this evolution. To stimulate investment in collection and sorting and foster innovation of production processes, however, we need a fair market and predictable regulatory framework. Europe is facing today an influx of artificially cheap imports from China, which distorts the global market. The risk is that European investments in recycling become uneconomic, meaning Europe currently loses many of the advantages that increased recycling could bring. Besides, more attention should be given to keeping scrap in Europe. Around 1 million tonnes of aluminium scrap per year are exported to nonEuropean regions and 4 millions of end-of-life-vehicles disappear off the European market without a trace. This represents around 600,000 tones of aluminium. Illegal scrap exports must be stopped and scrap export to third countries should only be allowed if proven a recycling facility complies with similar Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) standards as we have here in Europe.

*Editor, Aluminium International Today

Aluminium International Today

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What are the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis on the overall supply of materials to Europe? What can the aluminium industry and its customers do to increase recycling rates? Innovation and collaboration within the value chain are key. We need to understand better how customers are using our metal and design products for recycling to make traceability, disassembly and recycling easier and more cost-efficient. We also need significant research efforts and investments in new melt purification technologies and advanced shredding and sorting technologies to unlock the full potential of aluminium recycling. Finally, the industry and its customers should continue to promote the responsible consumption of aluminium and support behaviour awareness programmes that stimulate the public to recycle.

China has chosen aluminium as a strategic material and, through subsidisation and state intervention, has built up excess capacity, both for primary and semi-fabricated products. This creates distortions globally and negatively affects European producers. Achieving aluminium’s full circularity in Europe is part of the solution to reinforce Europe’s strategic autonomy, create jobs and avoid CO2 emissions. Recently, 65 Members of the European Parliament published a letter calling upon the EU Commission to deliver a bold agenda for all the raw materials needed for achieving climate-neutrality and the digital transition. Aluminium is not considered today as “critical” raw material, but there

is a real risk it becomes critical if all production is left to China like is already the case for magnesium. Europe should better incentivise circularity potential and prioritise funding of the circular economy in the Recovery Plan to ensure Europe has an increased capacity and a reliable supply of recycled materials. In particular, the Recovery and Resilience facility, InvestEU and the Just Transition Fund should give priority to investments in modern collection and sorting infrastructure and technologies if Europe wants to achieve its ambition of the Circular Economy Action Plan. The full Circular Aluminium Action Plan and executive summary are available for download on European Aluminium’s website.

CO2 emissions avoided by replacing import of primary aluminium with recycled aluminium in Europe Mt CO2 eq per year, 2019 and 2050 (BAU or high recycling)

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High recycling 2050 Post-consumer scrap

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Beyond the finish line - From linear sprint to circular marathon By committing to more sustainable, less linear business approaches, metals manufacturers can position themselves to thrive in the coming Circular Economy. By Stefan Koch* For decades, companies, industries and public policymakers around the world have sought to build a viable business case around the concept of the Circular Economy, a model based on the zerowaste principles of reuse, remanufacture and recycle. Yet the current rate at which materials are consumed and reused globally suggests that, outside a few pockets, the Circular Economy has struggled to find a foothold in the industrial mainstream. For example, the Circularity Gap Report 2020 finds that just 8.6% of the minerals, fossil fuels, metals and biomass that enter the global economy each year are re-used. What’s more, according to Circle Economy, the author of the report, although annual global material consumption surpassed 100 billion tons for the first time this year, the world’s reuse or “circularity” rate actually dropped from 9.1% in the previous two years. As elusive as profitable approaches to circularity and sustainability appear

to be in certain industries, regions and economies, the business case for exploring opportunities in the Circular Economy finally appears to be solidifying, at least for the aluminium industry and some of its customers. On the automotive side, for example, BMW is integrating circular practices into all 31 of its manufacturing plants around the world with a new system that separates tons of aluminium sheet waste from its production presses, then turns those bits of sheet metal into pressed cubes. BMW’s partner, Novelis, then melts the aluminium residues from the plant and reshapes them, turning the material into new sheets of aluminium. BMW unveiled the system at its plant in Dingolfing, Germany, in early 2020. Meanwhile, the luxury automaker also is exploring circular opportunities via a venture called Encory, a partnership with the German recycling company ALBA that is focused on re-engineering the logistics of vehicle scrappage by creating a system for extracting materials and parts/

components from cars before they are scrapped in order to remanufacture them. BMW is among a range of companies in a variety of industries, from construction materials to food manufacturing to cosmetics, that are seeking to close the loop in their production processes. But the Circular Economy isn’t just about zerowaste internal production processes, it’s also about creating new business models and revenue streams that go well beyond traditional recycling. The Linear Road to Nowhere one of the most recycled, and recyclable, materials on the planet, aluminium is “an ideal material for the circular economy,” according to the Aluminum Association, noting that “it can be recycled directly back into itself over and over again in a true closed loop.” About 75 percent of all aluminium produced globally remains in use today. That’s largely due to the favorable economics to recycle it. Recycling

*Global Lead for Metals, SAP Industries Aluminium International Today

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aluminium saves more than 90 percent of the energy that would be needed to create a comparable amount of the metal from raw materials, according to the Aluminum Association. Yet tons of the material that Napoléon III of France once deemed more valuable than gold still eludes the reach of the Circular Economy, with around $800 million worth of aluminium ending up in landfills each year in the U.S. alone, the association calculates. It’s part of a broader and escalating global waste problem. “There is only one planet Earth,” the European Commission says in the Circular Economy Action Plan that it issued earlier in 2020, “yet by 2050, the world will be consuming as if there were three. Global consumption of materials such as biomass, fossil fuels, metals and minerals is expected to double in the next forty years, while annual waste generation is projected to increase by 70% by 2050.” At the root of the problem is the linear “take-make-use-dispose” model of production and consumption. While entire industries and economies have long followed this model, the aforementioned figures suggest in no uncertain terms that it may be a deadend street from both an environmental and a business perspective. The waste we produce carries substantial and mounting costs to individual companies, their customers and the communities of which they are part. Those costs include disposal and compliance with relevant environmental regulations, as well as the serious but more difficult to define ecological and health impacts. The more evident these costs becomes to companies, consumers and policymakers, the less appealing the linear model looks – and the greater the impetus to pursue circular opportunities. Building a Circular Business Case The Ellen MacArthur Foundation describes the Circular Economy as built on the principles of “designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems.” The European Commission echoes that definition, calling the Circular Economy “a regenerative growth model.” Yet one big reason individual companies and industries haven’t shifted more aggressively to circular types of business models is a lack of clear growth prospects. Simply put, from a profitability standpoint, companies have found it difficult to justify pursuing opportunities in the Circular Economy, and thus have chosen to continue along a linear pathway. Within the metals industry, however, September/October 2020

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the scales appear to be tipping in favor of circular approaches. Russia’s NLMK Group, for example, is making metallurgical briquettes from blast-furnace byproducts for use in blast furnaces operations. The briquettes are used as feedstock for hot metal production, displacing primary iron ore and coal raw materials. The on-site process uses cold bonding to recover iron and carbon from blast furnace gas treatment, coke and coal dust. It’s enabling NLMK to reduce waste and CO2 emissions, and to extract value from materials that otherwise would be costly to dispose of. Briquetting returns 240,000 tons of NLMK blast furnace sludge to production. Furthermore, it has cut consumption of iron ore pellets by 9% and coke by 3%, reducing the cost of pig iron by 2%.”

Circular economy (Source: SAP)

Essentially, sustainability becomes part of the overall positive customer experience and value proposition a company and brand provides. Norsk Hydro is one such company, with its focus on developing aluminium alloys with a low carbon footprint. It now offers two types of low-carbon aluminium through its Circal and Reduxa brands. Circal products are made with a minimum of 75% recycled, post-consumer scrap aluminium, while Reduxa products are produced using lower-carbon processes that, according to the company, reduce the overall carbon footprint per kg of aluminium to 4 kg, less than a quarter of the global average. The global market for lower-carbon aluminium continues to gain momentum and legitimacy. Earlier this year, the London Metal Exchange disclosed plans to begin spot market “low carbon” aluminium trading in 2021, reportedly the first time a metal will be traded on the exchange based on its environmental footprint. Likewise, the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI), a group representing aluminium producers, users and other industry stakeholders, has implemented standards for responsible production, sourcing and stewardship of aluminium. Industry and government led efforts such as ASI are evolving rapidly as they gain the critical mass of members that seek certification. Increasing global awareness and pressure to move towards a circular and net zero economy make it clear that these efforts are now not the end goal but only an important step toward creating a circular economy.

In today’s volatile business environment, circular processes such as these can help metals companies squeeze as much efficiency out of their operations as possible, while reducing emissions to comply with stricter environmental regulations. What’s more, amid the heightened supply uncertainty that has accompanied the Covid-19 pandemic, it also shortens the supply chain. Brand differentiation is another compelling reason to consider circular approaches. Now more than ever, the pressure is on materials manufacturers to deliver products that are sustainability made. Customers increasingly want to do business with companies that demonstrate a commitment to sustainable business practices, and all other things being equal, the competitive edge may well go to companies that follow through on that commitment – without compromising product quality, customer support, etc.

A Digital Foundation for the Circular Economy “Sustainability is not a part of our strategy; it is our strategy,” Norsk Hydro states matter-of-factly. Executing that strategy takes a certain level of digital intelligence. For example, the company’s current goal is to produce aluminium with a maximum carbon footprint of two kilograms per kilogram of aluminium, without compromising recyclability or durability. To that end, it can use advanced modeling/simulation to design products specifically with recyclability, carbon content and reuse in mind. It also can generate precise documentation about how those products actually perform, so customers can make purchasing decisions accordingly. Digital capabilities also give the company an elevated level of supply chain visibility, enabling it to determine how to most efficiently and profitably source, produce, trace, recycle and recirculate Aluminium International Today

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materials. Advanced modeling and simulation also enable companies like Hydro to evaluate and re-engineer logistics and material ﬂow streams, taking into account location and value upand downstream. With track-and-trace capabilities, a company can ascertain the provenance and other relevant information about a material or product, following it along each step of its journey through the circular process. The right data, managed well, can underpin a traceability system to verify authenticity, safety, certification and sustainability, from raw material, through production, to finished goods. That data is valuable not only internally but externally, to customers, regulators, etc. Ultimately, this level of visibility gives an aluminium manufacturer a deeper understanding of the actual cost and value of all the inputs involved in the production and delivery of the end material. On the purchasing side, meanwhile, the more accessible and transparent this type of information is to your customers, the likelier they are to factor it into their buying decisions. As important as collaboration is to the Circular a strong digital platform is even more important to enable manufacturers to share critical information not only internally across the enterprise, but also with business partners and customers. Having a strong and reliable information set is critical to develop a common knowledge base as the foundation for in-depth business collaboration around sustainable business solutions. Industries such as automotive/mobility, construction, consumer electronics and consumer products are among those that are logical partners for aluminium producers in circular endeavors. When the parties involved in a particular circular venture – from energy suppliers to materials suppliers to recycling entities to end users – share a common digital platform and the data that ﬂows across it, they can collaborate and make business decisions based on a single version of the truth. “By 2029, the circular economy will be the only economy, replacing wasteful linear economies,” Gartner declared in 2019. The nature of the material it supplies, as well as the strides it has already taken to become more sustainable and digitally intelligent, put the aluminium industry in a uniquely strong position to pounce on opportunities in the Circular Economy. Those opportunities could come in unexpected forms. We soon could see aluminium companies working with mobility providers (auto companies) and consumer products makers to create circular pathways for reusing components and materials, for example. The future holds similar possibilities for aluminium products used in construction. Eventually we may see companies owning the entire aluminium value chain, from the raw material right down to the end consumer product. For metals companies that choose to embrace the Circular Economy, it seems, the possibilities for growth are endless. � Aluminium International Today

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Paul McFadyen, Managing Director of Metals4U

How a circular economy model will future proof the industry By Paul McFadyen* Bauxite rock is the world’s main source of aluminium, which is plentiful in countries like Australia, China, Guinea, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Vietnam, where some of the largest production facilities are located. This rich resource is invaluable to the economies of these countries, but there is a downside; primary aluminium production is incredibly energy intensive, environmentally damaging, and produces a vast amount of high alkaline, toxic bauxite tailings (red mud); estimates suggest that over 150 million tons of red mud was sent to landfill in 2015 alone. The UK is not self-sufficient in the aluminium mining market due to insufficient bauxite assets, so we are dependent on imports of aluminium from the EU and far east to meet our needs. As we do not yet have a secure trade deal with the EU, China, or the rest of the far east post-Brexit, our access to primary aluminium ingot is uncertain. This puts the UK at a real disadvantage in the metals market as we are reliant upon market forces external to our economy. So, the question is, how can the UK strengthen and future proof its position in a market where we have strong

manufacturing, but rely on imports of a primary material? The short answer is to increase our investments in recycling; appreciate and be more proactive in preserving and utilising our existing metal stock assets. Three quarters (75%) of all aluminium ever produced is still in use after numerous recycle processes, with no loss of quality or integrity to its mechanical, physical, or chemical properties. An estimated 24 million tonnes of aluminium goods are manufactured in the UK each year with around 51,000 tonnes alone being utilised in food and drink packaging. But rather startlingly, 80 million aluminium and steel drinks cans are sent to landfill every day. As a nation, we are overlooking an opportunity to protect our existing aluminium supplies, generate income, and reduce our carbon emissions. If we look at data for the humble drink can, we know that it uses 95% less energy to recycle than produce a new one, (recycling 1 tonne of aluminium saves up to 9 tonnes of CO2 emissions) and as 68% of all drink cans in the UK are manufactured from aluminium there is a huge potential market for capitalising on a product that

can be remade and resold with very low investment in ‘new’ materials, also saving on material import costs and energy. Recycling aluminium cans is by no means a new concept. Figures released for 2018 show that Finland and Germany recycle almost 99% of their aluminium beverage cans, Brazil is just behind them on 98%, Japan recycles around 82%, with the UK lagging behind at 75%, although the UK does have a target to recycle 85% by the end of 2020. Income generation is one of the main factors that are of interest to aluminium product manufacturers. Although the environmental factors are important, businesses have a ‘bottom line’ that needs to ensure the long-term security and financial success of their endeavours. The 94,000 tonnes of aluminium packaging that the UK recycled in 2018 generated £75 million in income for councils and metal waste re-processing facilities, true sustainability must surely protect the environment and the UK job market? Aluminium cans are worth twenty times more than any other packing materials, and UK industry figures suggest there is £30 million waiting to be collected and recycled at any one time. Prices for

*Managing Director of metals4U Aluminium International Today

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secondary aluminium is around £600 a tonne at present, whilst figures from the London Metal Exchange in June of this year had the price of primary aluminium ingots at £1,252 per tonne. At currently around half the price, using secondary aluminium stocks is a no brainer, combined with heavily reduced energy savings and creation and sustainability of UK jobs in the collection, processing, and manufacturing industries, the UK metal industries can grow stronger through Covid-19 trading and logistics difficulties and through the unknown post-Brexit landscape. So, how can we move forward to optimise the potential for reusing aluminium? National campaigns have run for many years advocating the benefits of reducing waste by moving away from single use items where possible and recycling items that can be easily reconfigured into another useful item. Parallel to this is the need to reduce the amount of plastic we produce, especially single use plastics. Consumers have long been demanding less waste and more environmentally conscious products, as evidenced by the greater availability of eco-friendly products. This is a strong indication that society is eager to play their part and contribute to the recycling movement. However, this is not always the case as much recyclable material ends up in landfill because the infrastructure is either lacking, or too difficult to access. Aluminium packaging is lighter weight than PET plastic packaging, which reduces transportation costs and is so easy to brand. Plastic drinks bottles usually have a brand-specific shape that makes them easily identifiable at point of purchase. Drink cans meanwhile are of uniform shape, regardless of capacity, so can be easily obtained ‘off the shelf’

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by drink manufacturers and are much easier to brand, saving time and money. PET plastic bottles are also affected by polymer shorting during recycling, which makes repeated bottle to bottle recycling impractical and unachievable, aluminium has no such problem. Many local authorities alternate their weekly waste collection service to deal with landfill rubbish one week and recyclables the next, but for most households this is simply not enough. Many households fill their containers on week one of the cycle, so popping some recyclables in the bin ensures they are not overwhelming home storage and encouraging flies and vermin in their overspill. This could be a contributing factor to how 26% of all aluminium recycled in 2017 was harvested from waste incinerators. But while this aluminium is good for manufacture of profiles and slabs, it is unsuitable for use as food packaging due to possible contamination. Better facilities at a local level that

encourage recycling and are simple and convenient, such as more consumer friendly kerbside collection services and strategies like ‘deposit return schemes’, are needed. These are becoming very popular throughout the rest of Europe and are operated like a reverse vending machine to help reduce the amount of metals that end up in landfill unnecessarily. The idea is not to reduce the amount of aluminium used, but to positively promote its use, over and over again, and to analyse how aluminium re-enters the manufacturing chain. This effort is not just of concern to the waste management companies, scrap metal dealers, and local councils. Manufacturers need to make decisions about how and where they purchase their stock. Aluminium is made into billets, blooms, and slabs through the recycling process which are then used to produce to extruded profiles, castings, and rolled metal stock products such as sheet and treadplate. Aluminium is the most valuable packaging asset in the waste stream. It is easy to recycle, with a 60-day turnaround from dropping into a recycling bin to being back on the shelf. The UK is currently lagging a little behind with our appreciation of UK aluminium stocks but has the infrastructure to step up to the challenges of a post-Brexit aluminium supply chain. By making better use of our resource recovery infrastructure and investigating how we can use our existing stocks of aluminium that are already in use in the UK will help to keep the profits and employment opportunities here where we need them and create a profitable and sustainable circular economy. � Contact: www.metals4u.co.uk

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Colorado Springs is a community located in the Rocky Mountains of the United States of America. The population of the metropolitan area includes more than 700,000 people. It is the second largest metro area within the State of Colorado. There are no aluminium smelters in Colorado Springs. There are no major aluminium production facilities in the metro area. Yet, it can be argued that this community is one of the major reasons why a 10% tariff was reimposed on the importation of non-alloyed unwrought aluminium from Canada into the USA. According to statements from the Federal government of the USA, the Section 232 tariff on aluminium was reimposed for reasons of national security. Colorado Springs is one of the key locales that help protect the national security of the USA. This community includes the headquarters of the joint military command of the United States of America and Canada – the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). American and Canadian military personnel work together at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado; Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska; Canadian Forces Base, Winnipeg, Manitoba; Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida; and at other facilities in both countries (some of which are unknown to this author) to jointly protect the American and Canadian people. Literally, Canadian military personnel can be found on American soil protecting both nations, while American military personnel can be found on Canadian soil protecting both nations. Beyond joint efforts to protect the national security of both nations, Canada and the USA also have strong economic relationships with each other as well as with México. On July 1, 2020, the United States-México-Canada Agreement (USMCA) became effective throughout North America. This trade agreement between the three nations was designed to “support mutually beneficial trade leading to freer markets, fairer trade, and robust economic growth in North America,” according to a statement from the Office of the U S Trade Representative. This new trade agreement replaced the previous North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Yet less than six weeks after the implementation of the USMCA, President Donald Trump of the USA made the decision to reimpose the 10% tariff on certain aluminium imports into the USA from Canada. The re-imposition of the tariff took effect on August 16, 2020. In the proclamation reinstituting this specific tariff, President Trump cited the national security of the USA as the reason Aluminium International Today

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The re-imposition of The Section 232 Tariff on Canada for his decision. He stated that “Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended, authorizes the President to adjust the imports of an article and its derivatives that are being imported into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security.” The national security of the USA was also cited by the Office of the US Trade Representative in a statement dated August 6, 2020: “The President exempted Canada from the tariffs he imposed under

Section 232 on the basis of an agreement that imports of steel and aluminium products from Canada would remain at historical levels. Since the President exempted Canada, imports from Canada of the product that accounts for the largest share of Canada’s aluminium exports to the United States have surged above historical levels. The surge has intensified in recent months, despite a contraction in US demand. To ensure the continued integrity and effectiveness of the national security measures the President adopted September/October 2020

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52 THE ALUMINA CHRONICLES

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Fig 2.

Fig 1

Fig 1. “US Air Force F-15 fighters jets from Massachusetts Air National Guard’s 104th Fighter Wing, and Royal Canadian Air Force CF-18 fighter jets from 3rd Wing, Bagotville, Québec fly in formation with a Pennsylvania Air National Guard KC-135 Stratotanker from the 171st Air Refueling Wing during a Continental U S North American Aerospace Defense Command [NORAD] Region and Canadian NORAD Region cross-border demonstration,” according to a news statement from NORAD. These joint efforts took place on April 23, 2020. “Aircrew and members of the Air National Guard and Royal Canadian Air Force practiced tactical-intercept skills in an air defence exercise designed to reinforce interoperability across the United States and Canadian border.” (The photograph was provided courtesy of NORAD) Fig 2. The Royal Canadian Air Force CF-18 fighter jets that are seen in the adjoining photograph – as they protected the national security of the USA and Canada – flew from a Canadian Forces Base highlighted in red in this aerial map of a section of Québec. This province is home to a number of aluminium smelters that serve the American and Canadian markets. The Grande-Baie Smelter of Rio Tinto is highlighted in yellow. Both the base and the smelter are within kilometers of each other in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean Region of Québec. (Aerial map was provided courtesy of the United States Geological Survey, 2020.)

under Section 232, the United States has reimposed a tariff on the surging imports, as provided for in our agreement with Canada.” The Office of the U S Trade Representative specifically cited statistics that indicated that “imports of non-alloyed unwrought aluminium have increased substantially to a level above historical volumes of trade over a prolonged period, including a period during which US aluminium consumption has decreased significantly.” The responses to this action were not unexpected. Those businesses that advocated for strong action to stem the tide of aluminium imports into the USA from Canada have largely praised the decision to reimpose the 10% tariff on non-alloyed unwrought aluminium imported from Canada into the USA. A statement from the American Primary Aluminum Association (APAA) on August 6, 2020, indicated that the organisation “is praising the Trump Administration following the reinstatement of Section 232 aluminium tariffs on Canadian imports of primary aluminium. Over the past year, Canadian aluminium imports have surged by over 95% in violation of Canada’s commitments to the United States. This surge accelerated in June, hitting 190,798 metric tons, a new high since Canada was granted an exemption to the Section 232 program. Today’s action stops this surge from threatening more American jobs.” “The decisive action taken…by the Trump Administration will help save September/October 2020

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America’s primary aluminium industry which has been decimated by an unprecedented surge of Canadian primary aluminium imports,” said Mr. Mark Duffy, Chief Executive Officer of the APAA. “The APAA and our member companies resoundingly applaud President Trump for his bold leadership to protect America’s national and economic security, save the US primary aluminium industry, and put thousands of American aluminium workers first.” The American Primary Aluminum Association includes two program partners, Century Aluminum Company and Magnitude 7 Metals. “President Trump’s action demonstrates this administration’s continued dedication to restoring the US aluminium industry and American jobs,” stated Mr. Michael Bless, President and Chief Executive Officer of Century Aluminum Company. “As policymakers focus on shoring up our manufacturing base and enhancing supply chain resiliency, the President’s leadership helps to secure continued domestic production of this vital strategic material and level the playing field for thousands of American aluminium workers.” According to Century Aluminum, the company is the largest producer of primary aluminium in the United States; its smelter in Kentucky is the last smelter in the USA capable of producing highpurity aluminium necessary for defence and military applications. “The Section 232 program has been instrumental in driving the resurgence of aluminium production in this country,”

Mr. Bless continued. “I am privileged, on behalf of our employees and the communities they support, to thank President Trump for his strong leadership and for supporting American workers.” Those businesses that advocated for the status quo – Americans and Canadians working together without an additional tariff – have largely condemned the decision to reimpose the Section 232 tariff on aluminium imported into the USA from Canada. “We’re incredibly disappointed that the administration failed to listen to the vast majority of domestic aluminium companies and users by reinstating Section 232 tariffs on Canadian aluminium,” stated Mr. Tom Dobbins, President and CEO of The Aluminum Association in a news statement. “After years of complex negotiations and hard work by government, industry and other leaders across North America to make the United States-México-Canada Agreement (USMCA) a reality, this ill-advised action on a key trading partner undermines the deal’s benefits at a time when US businesses and consumers can least afford it.” According to The Aluminum Association, the trade group represents aluminium production and jobs in the United States, ranging from primary production to value added products to recycling, as well as suppliers to the industry; the organisation indicates it represents companies that make 70 percent of the aluminium and aluminium products shipped in North America. Aluminium International Today

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“As The Aluminum Association has extensively documented, reports of a ‘surge’ of primary aluminium imports from Canada are grossly exaggerated,” the news statement from the trade association detailed. “Data [in the first week of August of 2020]…by the US Census Bureau showed that overall primary aluminium imports to the US from Canada declined about 2.6 percent from May to June and are below levels seen as recently as 2017. The few companies that stand to benefit from reinstated 232 tariffs on aluminium have cherry-picked government data and omitted important context to build their case, which unfortunately won the day.” The Aluminium Association of Canada issued similar sentiments on August 6, 2020. “Canadian aluminium has been a key competitive advantage for US manufacturers since the beginning of the 20th century and is recognised in United States law as a contribution to the nation’s defence and an important component of its industrial base,” noted the statement from the Aluminium Association of Canada. “While the US produces, at best, one million metric tons a year of primary metal, it consumes six times that amount. Re-imposing tariffs only raises costs for US

THE ALUMINA CHRONICLES 53

consumers and businesses in the middle of economic recovery efforts.” “Year in and year out, Canada has been the most reliable source of primary aluminium for the US, providing low carbon, responsibly produced metal at world prices,” stated Mr. Jean Simard, President and CEO of the Aluminium Association of Canada. “This US focus on Canada only distracts from the real problem facing the aluminium industry: unfairly subsidised Chinese aluminium production leading to global overcapacity.” The two major trade unions representing workers in the aluminium industry in Canada have also condemned the action of the USA as has the major trade union representing aluminium workers in the USA. “Tariffs on Canadian-made aluminium are [President] Trump’s ‘solution’ to a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Mr. Jerry Dias, Unifor National President. “The Trump administration has gifted billions of dollars worth of tariff exemptions, allowing countries like China to flood the US market with aluminium, but has the audacity to paint Canadian workers as the villain. It’s totally absurd.” Unifor represents about 4,000 workers

Fig 3

in the aluminium industry in Québec and British Columbia. This union is one of two major trade unions that represent workers in the aluminium industry in Canada. “Without any direct evidence to support their claim, the American Primary Aluminum Association (APAA) – which represents only two aluminium companies – claims a ‘surge’ in Canadian aluminium imports has caused aluminium prices to collapse,” according to a statement from Unifor issued on August 6, 2020. “In reality, the Canadian share of US primary aluminium imports has been falling. Canada’s share of domestic US consumption of primary non-alloyed aluminium has fallen from nearly 50 per cent in 2010 to 43 per cent in 2019, while the share of non-Canadian foreign imports has skyrocketed.” The union had issued a previous news statement on June 23, 2020, stating that “The ‘surge’ claim is entirely arbitrary, and based on trade flows over a short period. The APAA’s claim also fails to account for headwinds facing the industry, including the economic downswing caused by COVID-19 along with a dramatic rise in non-Canadian foreign imports from places like China and Russia over the past decade.”

Fig 4

Fig 3. “U S Air Force General Lori Robinson, Commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U S Northern Command and Canadian Lt. Gen. Pierre St-Amand, the NORAD Deputy Commander salute during the playing of the Last Post and missing-man formation flyover by the Royal Canadian Air Force’s Snowbirds aerial demonstration team on Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, May 11, [2018],” according to a news statement from NORAD. “The ceremony was part of the placement and dedication of a cairn to honor the Canadian service men and women who passed away while serving NORAD. The placement of the cairn was conducted in conjunction with the 60th Anniversary of NORAD and the U S Canadian binational NORAD agreement.” “One of the reasons our arrangement here in Colorado Springs works is the genuine and profound connection between our two countries and the people of them,” said Gen. Jonathan H. (Jon) Vance, chief of the Defence Staff of the Canadian Armed Forces. “Yes, we share a continent. Yes, we share values, and those we must defend. But there is a deeper bond as has been mentioned before between Canada and the United States, and it’s one that makes us more than friends. We’re family.” (The photograph was provided courtesy of NORAD and Northern Command Public Affairs through the U S Department of Defense.)

Fig 4. “A Royal Canadian Air Force CF-18 Hornet, assigned to the Royal Canadian Air Force, escorts a B-52 Stratofortress during a North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) mission,” according to a news statement from NORAD. The statement indicated that this mission took place on June 14, 2020, and was conducted from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii. “NORAD routinely conducts intercept training in support of its mission to protect the sovereign airspaces of the United States and Canada.” (The photograph was provided courtesy of NORAD, 2020.)

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54 THE ALUMINA CHRONICLES

Unifor says that global economic conditions have eroded the American capacity to produce aluminium, and massive increases in Russian and Chinese imports have made up the difference. The United Steelworkers Union (USW) also issued statements in opposition to the re-imposition of the Section 232 tariff on non-alloyed unwrought aluminium imported from Canada into the USA. This union represents thousands of workers in the aluminium industry in both Canada and the USA. “The Trump administration is flouting the May 2019 agreement between the US and Canada which removed baseless Section 232 ‘national security’ tariffs on Canadian exports at that time,” stated Mr. Ken Neumann, USW National Director for Canada on August 6, 2020. “The re-imposition today of these bogus US tariffs on Canadian aluminium is now threatening thousands of Canadian jobs.” “Our union fought for more than a year, on both sides of the border, to oppose those tariffs. Having to fight this same battle again is unconscionable,” said Mr. Dominic Lemieux, USW Director in Québec, where the vast majority of aluminium plants in Canada are located. “Canada and the United States benefit from an integrated aluminium market. Canadian aluminium producers engage in fair trade and do not pose any national security threat to the US.” “Our two countries have a strong, longstanding, productive trading relationship. We know that Canada is not the problem facing the US,” stated Mr. Thomas Conway, USW International President. “From Day One in the discussion about Section 232 actions on steel and aluminium, we have opposed tariffs on Canada. We continue to advocate for negotiated solutions between our two countries that preclude tariffs and build on our great trading relationship.” Both trade unions encouraged the Canadian government to respond with retaliatory tariffs. “The Canadian government must respond with retaliatory tariffs on a wide range of US exports, given the Trump administration’s disregard for the 2019 agreement and the absence of any justification for ‘national security’ tariffs on Canadian aluminium,” Mr. Neumann of the USW continued. “It is now time for Canada to stand up for Canadian aluminium workers.” Unifor concurred: “A policy designed for Russian and Chinese exports has been recklessly applied to Canadian producers,” said Mr. Dias of Unifor. “Prime Minister [Justin] Trudeau must respond with severe countermeasures.” Others in the business community in September/October 2020

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Canada also encouraged the Canadian government to retaliate against the American decision on the tariff. The Canadian government moved swiftly to not only condemn the action of the USA, but has also begun efforts to implement new tariffs of its own on a variety of products imported into Canada from the USA. According to a statement from Canada, “These countermeasures will take effect by September 16, 2020, and will remain in place until the US eliminates its tariffs against Canada. The countermeasures will not apply to US goods that are in transit to Canada on the day on which these countermeasures come into force.” The value of those imports is estimated to be in the range of $2.7 billion (US). It may be useful to look back to 2018 when the USA imposed the Section 232 tariffs on both aluminium and steel imported from many nations into the USA. The name of these specific tariffs come from the “Section 232” of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 passed by the US Congress and signed into law by President John Kennedy. These tariffs are based on protecting the national security of the USA. The bulwarks for the imposition of the initial aluminium tariff, in particular, were outlined in a detailed report entitled “The Effect Of Imports Of Aluminum On The National Security.” This 240 page report was issued on January 17, 2018, and has been used by President Trump as justification for the tariff on aluminium imports. The concepts outlined in this report can be summarised in two major ways: 1. The USA needs to have high-purity aluminium produced within the USA for use by the military in its defence of the USA; and 2. The USA needs to make sure that the aluminium industry overall is healthy enough in the USA so that businesses will be able to economically and efficiently produce the high-purity aluminium. Without both elements, the argument goes, the military of the USA may become dependent on adversaries or potential adversaries for high-purity aluminium. There is a certain logic behind the idea. If the aluminium industry overall is not efficient, it will not likely be economical. If the aluminium industry overall is not economical, it will not likely be profitable. If the aluminium industry overall is not profitable, investments in the aluminium industry will decrease. Eventually, the aluminium industry could further whither in size. At some point, the aluminium industry would not be able to produce the aluminium products needed for the national security of the United States of America. Therefore, the

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Federal government of the USA must take steps to assure the efficiency, economics, investment potential, and profitability of the aluminium industry to assure the availability of the aluminium products needed by the military to protect the USA. Canada is mentioned 109 times in this report. One mention of this nation noted that “Canada, which is highly integrated with the US defence industrial base and considered a reliable supplier, is the leading source of imports.” This report also includes testimony of Mr. Michael Bless of Century Aluminum Company in a public hearing held by the U S Department of Commerce on June 22, 2017. In his testimony, Mr. Bless detailed the serious threats from China and others within the aluminium industry. In this same testimony, Mr. Bless also stated that “As a contiguous, friendly neighbor, Canada is a safe and reliable source of supply. In Century’s view, Section 232 relief can be effective without applying it to Canada.” The sentiment of Century Aluminum Company at that time was joined by others in the aluminium industry. For example, Mr. Marco Palmieri, Senior Vice President and President of Novelis North America, testified at the same hearing that “Novelis believes it is important for the Department [of Commerce] to recognize that the aluminium industries of the United States and Canada are intertwined, with Canada playing a vital role in support of US aluminium manufacturing efforts… Therefore, to ensure the viability of the US aluminium industry, the Department should exclude Canada from any remedy recommendation made in its final report.” While Mr. Bob Prusak, then the Chief Executive Officer of Magnitude 7 Metals, did not explicitly state that a Section 232 tariff should not be applied to imports of aluminium from Canada, he did offer the following testimony: “Finally, I would stress that excluding any import sources other than Canada from Section 232 relief would undermine any relief granted to the point where the US industry would see virtually no benefits.” The 218 mentions of “China” in the report and the accompanying public testimonies were far less complimentary than the kind words expressed by almost all within the aluminium industry regarding Canada: “Chinese overproduction [has] suppressed global aluminium prices and flooded into world markets.”; “China’s aluminium production is largely unresponsive to market forces.”; and “A major factor contributing to the decline in domestic aluminium production and loss of domestic production capacity has been excess production and capacity in China, which now accounts for over half of global aluminium production.” Aluminium International Today

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While the USA temporarily exempted Canada initially from any Section 232 tariffs, the USA did impose Section 232 tariffs on aluminium and steel imports from Canada into the USA as of June of 2018. Those tariffs remained in force through May of 2019. At that time, the USA indicated that it would “snapback” tariffs if certain conditions occurred. It is the view of the USA that those conditions occurred; it is the view of Canada, most of the aluminium industry in both nations, and the two major trade unions representing aluminium workers that nothing has materially changed to warrant the reimposition of tariffs that almost all of them initially opposed anyway. All of the statements regarding the imposition and re-imposition of the Section 232 tariff on aluminium are couched in terms of securing the national defence of the USA. But that logic misses several key facts. The Congressional Research Service issued its “Section 232 Investigations: Overview and Issues for Congress” updated as of April 7, 2020. In this report, this service that is part of the US Congress stated that “Canada is considered part of the US defence industrial base according to US law and is also a top source of US imports of steel and aluminium.” By Federal law of the USA, the aluminium facilities in Canada are regarded as if they were aluminium facilities within the actual territory of the USA. The specific law is “10 USC Ch. 148: National Defense Technology and Industrial Base, Defense Reinvestment, and Defense Conversion.” This law explicitly states that “The term ‘national technology and industrial base’ means the persons and organisations that are engaged in research, development, production, integration, services, or information technology activities conducted within the United States, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Australia, and Canada.” (Yes, the same US law applies to facilities in the UK and Australia.) Beyond the fact that aluminium facilities in both Canada and the USA are considered, for national defence purposes of the USA, to be part of the same “national technology and industrial base,” the USA and Canada jointly protect each other’s territory through treaty agreements. There is no light between the two nations when it comes to mutual

defence of North America. The argument that Canada is a threat to the national security of the USA is an argument that is difficult to make. But it is an argument made by the Administration of President Donald Trump when it comes to the aluminium industry. The logic of the Section 232 tariff on Canada is further diminished considerably given the exclusions approved by the US Department of Commerce in the past more than two years. Businesses are able to be “excluded” from having to pay the 10% tariff on imported aluminium if a request is made to and granted by the US Department of Commerce. Those requests have borne fruit. The vast majority of requests made to be excluded from the Section 232 tariff on imported aluminium have been approved by the U S Department of Commerce. According to a report of The Aluminum Association, as of August 4, 2020, a total of 19,336 exclusion requests – requests by businesses to not pay the Section 232 tariff on aluminium imported into the USA – have been made since March 29, 2018. Of that total, The Aluminum Association indicated that 13,395 were granted, 3,171 were denied, and 2,760 remain to be decided. Overall, using the statistics from The Aluminum Association, the approval rate is 80.9% for all exclusion requests decided by the US Department of Commerce as of August 4, 2020. Among the businesses granted exclusions from the Section 232 tariff were ones given permission to import aluminium from such nations as France (216 requests granted to businesses to import aluminium from France itself; 399 additional requests to import aluminium from France and other nations together), Russia (10 requests granted to businesses to import aluminium from Russia itself; 7 additional requests granted to import aluminium from Russia and other nations together), and Sweden (361 requests granted to businesses to import aluminium from Sweden itself), among many other nations. Of the requests granted, 1,584 involved approvals granted to businesses to import aluminium from Canada itself; 26 additional approvals were granted to import aluminium from Canada and other nations together. Overall, the USA granted approvals for 1,610 requests from businesses to not pay

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the 10% tariff on aluminium imported from Canada. The requests granted also included approvals to businesses to import aluminium from China. A total of 802 approvals were granted to businesses to not pay the 10% tariff for aluminium imported from China itself, 366 additional approvals granted for aluminium imported from Hong Kong (part of China), and 1,117 additional approvals granted for aluminium imported from China and other nations together. Overall, the US Department of Commerce granted approvals for 2,285 requests from businesses to not pay the 10% tariff on aluminium imported from China (including Hong Kong). Today, as you read this news column, please be aware that regardless of whether the Section 232 tariff is being applied to imports of aluminium into the USA from Canada, both nations continue to work together in their national defence. For the people of Colorado Springs and many other communities in both Canada and the USA, nothing has changed. American and Canadian military personnel continue to jointly work together to defend the people of the United States of America and Canada. Citizens of both nations continue to serve as members of a joint command to protect the national security of the USA and the national security of Canada. There is no difference between the protections provided by these individuals to people living in Kentucky or in Québec. All are protected as part of the joint efforts for the national security of Canada and the USA. This news column ends with quotes from the two men who lead these two nations. The quotes were included in a news release dated May 14, 2018, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD): “This unique binational military command is an enduring symbol of the important partnership between Canada and the United States – one that is essential to us both,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement. US President Donald Trump also lauded NORAD for its success. The President said: “The valued partnership we share will help our militaries to counter emerging threats and pass on a legacy of peace and prosperity to future generations.” �

Do you have questions about the aluminium industry? Governmental regulations? Company operations? Your questions may be used in a future news column. Contact Richard McDonough at aluminachronicles@gmail.com. © 2020 Richard McDonough

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Dynaprime: Alcoa high efficiency CFF filtering system A new efficient, compact, reliable, proven and qualified technology for can stock and other added-value products offered on the market. By Patrice Cote* and Francis Caron** Context The aluminium can stock demand for beverage and food packaging is increasing significantly due to the current trend in which plastic containers are being replaced by aluminium cans. The typical filtration technology used for can stock production is Deep Bed Filter (DBF). This equipment is very large and requires large floor surface which is usually very limited in brownfield plants. DBF contains a large metal volume between casts requiring powerful heating systems and drainages to change alloy production. High Grade CCF, such as 70 PPI, is an option for high-quality low-inclusion metal. However, priming such a filter in normal conditions with existing elevations in most brownfield cast houses is not possible or is not cost-effective as a project. Alcoa was looking for a new, compact, simple and reliable solution for high grade CFF priming. Development of the DynaPrime The idea initiated by Alcoa was to use vibration during a short period when filling of the CFF box starts in order to prime the filter. Dynamic Concept, an innovative process equipment supplier for cast houses, was chosen for a co-development project. All steps of the development program went as planned and led to a successful industrial unit. From the first operating day of the industrial unit, the metal cleanliness performance was equal to or exceeded expectations. Following the success of the first units, additional units were installed in Alcoa plants. The technology is now IP protected in the US and other jurisdictions.

accelerated gravity, thus enabling priming of the cartridge with a lower head. The technology is very reliable due to the simplicity of the vibration-inducing components. Only a few seconds of vibration at the beginning of the box filling is required. No vibration is used during casting. All other components of the system are lik to a standard CFF box. It is available in single, double or triple configuration depending on the required capacity. The technology package includes an automatic hot air preheating lid with accurate temperature control. Electrical and gas pre-heat lids are available. The forced air system preheats at the required temperature without overheating, allowing optimal and reliable filter cartridge gasket performance. The retraction of the lid is mechanized with a speed controlled electrical actuator. The package also includes a PLC and an HMI to automate and optimized all sequences and make the system safe for the operators.

Metallurgical Results and Qualification The DynaPrime technology has been in uninterrupted operation for over two years now. Many industrial units have been successfully installed and are currently operating. Multiple tests with PoDFA and LiMCA have been completed and qualification programs were completed with various customers during that period. This filtration technology does deliver comparable results to DBF with the proper combination of filtration surface and CFF porosity. Material made with the technology qualified successfully for beverage and food can body and can end stock along with other sensitive products. Features and Benefits DynaPrime technology has delivered the following performance and benefits in recent years: ďż˝ Proved capable for production of can stock and other inclusion-sensitive applications ďż˝ Demonstrated low operating and Double DynaPrime CFF

Technology Description The priming technology uses specific vibrations on the cartridge applied in a controlled way to mimic the effect of a higher metal head generating *P. Eng. President, Dynamic Concept **P. Eng. Director, Aluminum Smelting & Casting Technology, Alcoa Aluminium International Today

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07/09/2020 11:03:55

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out entrapped molten Aluminium from cartridge at end of cast (after mold feeding is interrupted). � Allows safe and completely automatic operating from preheating, temperature control, cast start until end of cast control activities.

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maintenance cost compared to a Deep Bed Filter, those costs are 60% to 80 % less and comparable to a standard CFF bowl and preheating system. � Demonstrated high operation availability compared to a Deep Bed Filter, no lost operating time for alloy changes or DBF box relining. The DynaPrime pre-cast shape takes only a few minutes to replace. � Proved fast and simple to retrofit in existing cast houses particularly if replacing an existing standard CFF. The DynaPrime footprint is small (10 m2 for the DynaPrime compared to 112 m2 for

September/October 2020

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a DBF and ancillaries for same flow rate capacity) and requires low metal head (2-3 inches of metal head is enough). � Demonstrated very high-priming reliability: over 99 % of the time. � Demonstrated complete use of the filtering surface area. The effective filtration area is smaller and concentrated in the middle when using a standard CFF without vibration. Thus, for the same grade and size, the Dynaprime capacity is higher (total metal volume and flow) � Allows recovering of the metal and filter weight reduction by vibrating

Conclusion The operational experience with the first units in recent years demonstrated that the DynaPrime is a robust, reliable and cost-effective solution, suitable for aluminium can stock and other valueadded products. Unit performance has exceeded the original expectations with proven benefits. It is a valuable option to can stock and other value-added aluminium ingots growing markets. The technology is available for any primary or secondary aluminium producer worldwide. Dynamic Concept will adapt and manufacture the equipment to fit client requirements. � Contact www.dynamicconcept.com

Aluminium International Today

07/09/2020 11:04:14

Scan the QR Code to access our website.

Sistem Teknik,

The turnkey solution provider for light metal and composite thermal processing.

Productline Cast House Furnaces & Equipments Extrusion Line Furnaces Homogenizing Furnaces Aluminium Slug Annealing Furnaces Foil / Coil Annealing Furnace T - 6 Heat Treatment Lines Composite Autoclaves & Ovens

www.sistemteknik.com

sales.alu@sistemteknik.com

+90(262) 658 22 26

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF PRODUCTIVITY

Pressta Eisele is the number one supplier of high speed and precision saws for the aluminum industry worldwide. We manufacture from simple single station saws to fully automatic cutting lines with loading magazines and handling stations anything a modern production needs to keep up with the steadily increasing market demands.

www.pressta-eisele.de

FOR SALE Aluminum Die-Casting Cells from EU Automotive Supplier www.hilcoind.com/sale/gruberkaja Gruber & Kaja High Tech Metals GmbH

Machinery From:

5-AXIS TWINSPINDLE MACHINING CENTRE “SW” Model BAW06-22 (2018); 17.500 RPM; (5) 4/5-AXIS MACHINING CELLS “FILL” SM-02 and Syncromill 263 SPL 2-1 (2009-2011) with “ABB” IRB6640 Robots, Flatness Testers, Leak Testers, Conveyors.

TO BE SOLD BY PRIVATE TREATY (4) MELTING & HEATING FURNACES: “Striko-Westofen” Models WHS-T5000/2500/6-EG; WHS-T3000/2000/G-EG; MHII2000/1500/G-EG WMHR-T2000/1200/G-EG(1989,200,2002, 2005) (13) DIE CASTING CELLS: “IDRA”, “OLEO” and “ITALPRESSE” 500 Ton to 2.280 Ton (2000,2002, 2004,2007,2014), complete with “Siemens Panel PLC”; “Striko-Westofen” Furnaces; Spraying Units, “ABB” Unloading Robot(s); “BRESCIA” Trimming Presses etc. (77) TEMPERATURE CONTROL UNITS: “ROBAMAT” Theromocast 3201 (2002-2018) 2 X 35 KW MOTORS; Spindle Taper HSK 63A; X/Y/Z travels 600/600/500 mm; Spindle Distance 600 mm; Siemens 840DSL Control; 2x 72 Pos. ATC: Tilting & Rotating Table

Viewing: Wednesday, 23 September 2020 (by appointment only) Online Auction: Closing: 01/10/2020 10:00 AM (CET)

Sale Location : Linz, Austria

Sale Contact : Ingrid Helsloot +31 (0)20 470 0989 IHelsloot@hilcoglobal.com

Approximately 450 items are put up for auction. These include: (11) CNC Machining Centers, CNC Turning Cell, Machine Tools, Inspection Equipment/CMM, Overhead Cranes, Forklifts/Aerial Platform/Transporter, Welders; Shotblasts, Compressors KAESSER (3) DSD 201, DSD 141,ESD361, Large amount of Pallet Racking; Cleaning Machines, Floor Sweepers; Benches, Tooling, Toolboxes and more.

Auction Conducted by

TRANSPORT & HANDLING 63

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AGV’s will do the job Since the technical revolution, producing in a highly demanding and sometimes even dangerous environment, mankind has been developing all kind of strategies and ways for improving labour into more efficient processes. Peter Vanvuchelen* explains

Since technology stepped in, people have made even bigger steps in finding ways to improve efficiency. More important, technology changed the way we are behaving and the way that we are living our lives. People use technology, not only to do simple tasks, mainly in a factoryenvironment, but technology has even integrated into people’s houses and lives. 100 years ago, a simple car was at the point of slowly moving horses back from the streets to the prairies. Not even one generation ago, we started to discover the Internet as a window on the world as we know it today. Today we have machines scanning the surface of Mars, driving around and operating autonomously in the most extreme circumstances. Our cars are so smart that they not only show us the way, but they can even drive us with minimum

or no intervention from the driver. People don’t write letters anymore but they send pictures and video-chat instantly by using WhatsApp, Instagram or similar apps on their smartphones. These simple examples are just one way to understand how we evolved at high speed as species. Yes - we changed. We have become demanding in terms of patience, comfort and developing ourselves. People don’t want to work in unsafe environments any longer, they want to develop their creativity. They don’t want to work in a dusty factory, they want to spend more time with their beloved ones. They look for quality, reflecting in an increasing environmental awareness (green and clean environment, healthy activities, biological food etc) like it was

never seen before. Along with the technological evolution came the opportunity to improve safety – all kinds of systems are watching over us to make sure that we travel safely and that accidents in factories are reduced to an absolute minimum. Wherever possible, unsafe jobs are being done by robots since a few decades. Knowing this, and facing this new reality, it is not surprising that industries are looking for new technologies that apply to these needs. Everyone running a company knows it: Finding technical people becomes a challenge. Finding people who want to do simple repetitive labour is getting impossible. Besides this, safety is still a point of concern: accidents due to operators cannot be avoided for the full 100%.

*Director Business Development, Hencon BV Aluminium International Today

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64 TRANSPORT & HANDLING

Continuity, perfect traceability and performing tasks in a perfectly consequent way will never be possible as long as people are doing the job. People need distraction, holidays and coffee-brakes. People get ill. People get bored. People make mistakes. The harsh reality is that people prefer doing other things than monotonous work. This is where smart machines come into the picture. Machines that can take over the job and can do it even faster, safer and far more efficient, with less use of fossil energy then people can ever do. Machines that don’t need to be controlled or where interaction with operators is no longer needed. Machines that improve every step in the production process and detect and communicate every deviation in the production process (temperature, anomalies in anode-blocks, etc). The first AGV’s for pot rooms already exist, and they work. Hencon AGV’s in the aluminium industry When Hencon started as a company, its main focus was on building quality machines for the aluminium industry. Together with increasing experience and know-how, and along with the trends as described above, Hencon also felt that industries were more and more looking for suppliers who are able to think with them about strategic choices, about how to facilitate in their production processes and about how to improve safety and climate in their plants. Low emission of the machines and a zero-tolerance on accidents were parameters that became a fact of life. In the meantime, higher productivity and increasing competition were factors that could not be denied. Just overtaking labour was not enough any longer. Several high-profile trendsetting September/October 2020

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customers of Hencon are looking for possibilities to set up a ‘smart factory’, as soon as possible. Cyber-physical production systems are not just a far dream any longer, with Industry 4.0. a new way of thinking is born. Hencon wants to be the first company within its field, who offers the right products, services and solutions, to get ready for those new needs. Hencon started to develop its own Automatic Guided Vehicles. The first challenge that needed to be tackled was the specific environment in Aluminium Plants. Dust, electromagnetic fields and extreme temperatures are the conditions under which AGV’s – highly precise technological machines – need to operate (in potrooms). No need to explain that the Hencon-engineers lost their sleep in finding ways to overcome these circumstances before producing the first prototype of this high tech equipment. Another remarkable change that grew into the organization was the way in how to interacts with its customer. ‘In the old days’, customers ordered machines for a well-specified purpose. Nowadays there is a continuous dialogue between Hencon and its customers, during which solutions for a smart industry are born progressively, after a mutual exchange of ideas, and the will to achieve goals that have never been set before. The relationship resulting from this kind of collaboration is based on mutual trust and the ambition to set new standards and can rather be described as a solid and durable partnership than as a customer-supplier relationship. Now, several years later, Hencon can

proudly state that its first AGV’s are working in the field at full satisfaction. Hencon is at this moment the only manufacturer who has achieved to deliver AGV’s in the (electromagnetic) field successfully. Within the evolution towards automatisation, there were several steps to be taken. The first step towards the completely autonomous AGV was making machines who served as an accessible, intuitive interface between man and production environment, made for doing simple tasks. The layout of all the instruments, the handles and the screens should become as easy to understand and to work with as a smartphone. Now Hencon is able to build very complex machines that not only take over the job but combine several complex jobs at the same time (transportation, picking up, unloading, measuring temperature, scanning the quality of anodes, etc) Safety is always priority number one because, although AGV’s are conceived to operate totally autonomously, the reality is that in most of the factories it is impossible to avoid situations in which machines and human being cross their paths. It must be emphasized that realization of such AGV’s, but even more the implementation of the final product in a real-life environment can only be successful under the condition of a strong relationship between both parties: The customer and Hencon. It takes a lot of time and mutual efforts. STEP 1: DEFINING Starting from a general idea and direction, towards a full implementation of the AGV, the first step to be taken is a precise definition of the objective and the way that the production takes place at that moment. Hencon needs to understand the process of manufacturing and the projected results in terms of efficiency which are the object of the automatisation. Aluminium International Today

08/09/2020 06:27:40

World leader in the manufacturing of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) for the light metal industry www.hencon.com

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12-08-1933 15:09

66 TRANSPORT & HANDLING

STEP 2: FEASIBILITY STUDY From there a feasibility study should result in a first draft of the new (automated) situation. During the feasibility study, engineers from both customer and Hencon stay in close contact. STEP 3: SIMULATION If there is mutual agreement on the outcome of the feasibility study, some case-studies will be executed, with equipment that is in operation already, who will then be behaving as AGV’s in order to understand what the impact of automatisation will be. This is an important step, because routes, interaction with the existing factory-environment, potential unforeseen bottle-necks and the reactions of personnel should be analysed before it can be sure that an AGV will be a successful solution with that particular customer. The main purpose is that within this period of continuous reporting & analysing, improvements on the first draft towards a detailed plan will be made. STEP 4: CONCEPT This will result in a crystal clear and extremely detailed planning (the full operational process of the AGV, the routes, the charging points, the safety protocols etc.), as well as a complete drawing and concept of the AGV’s that will be built. All the objections and wishes of managers and operators will be taken into account for optimising the final tailormade product. STEP 5: INTRODUCING THE AGV Finally, the AGV will arrive at the plant. Training of personnel and fine-tuning of the AGV will be the first thing to do. After that, the AGV will do its first steps in the production process and further fine-tuning September/October 2020

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will be necessary. Intermediate evaluation sessions will be planned and will result in further fine-tuning of the AGV. STEP 6: FOLLOW-UP Follow-up on a regular basis, after implementation, with the possibility of a full service of the AGV’s This way of intense working together with the customer is a totally different approach than the traditional straightforward sales process. The main difference is that the customer does not order a number of machines (considered as commodities) but that by introducing new technologies, the customer is boosting its own business into a new era (Industry 4.0), turning its factory into a smart factory. Hencon doesn’t just sell AGVs, the role of the supplier can be rather described as the facilitator in a new way of thinking and as the partner enabling to materialize the ideas that were latent already. Hencon has new similar projects in the pipeline and is looking forward to sharing its growing experience with every potential innovative customer, looking for the same profits and improvements and willing to discover new paths together. Maybe it is useful to conclude with paying attention to a wide scale of additional benefits, that is coming along with the use of AGV’s. Benefits of AGV’s AGVs will contribute to the efficiency of all kinds production processes and all kinds of logistical processes while increasing safety and reducing costs. The following benefits and properties can be identified: � Suitable for picking up, transporting and unloading any load (fluid aluminium, anodes,… )

www.aluminiumtoday.com

� Electrifying the powerpack leads to zero emission and less noise � Low costs (maintenance costs are extremely low, personnel costs are reduced tremendously) ( in combination with a much higher output) � 100% Safety (no personnel involved) � Constant communication between machine and supervisors - System helps to track & trace quantities and locations of the transported materials) - Remote and even off-site monitoring of operation - Remote OEM support � The AGV will be directed via a Supervision system to the specific locations that are indicated by the Manufacturing Execution System (MES). This guarantees that the AGV is always at the right time at the right place and ensures the best production efficiency � Machine works 24/7 with an unprecedented reliability � More compact machines (no cabin required, no combustion engine) � Complying with specific needs of Industry 4.0

AGVs are already successfully used in mines, ports, rolling mills, cast houses, potrooms etc. There are no technical limitations to launch AGV technology in any production environment. Hencon is at all time available for more detailed information and appointments can be made at the customer’s offices or at Hencon’s. �

Contact: www.hencon.com

Aluminium International Today

08/09/2020 06:27:49

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combilift.com

MASS PRODUCER OF CUSTOMISED HANDLING SOLUTIONS Improved storage capacity | Safer product handling | Increased productivity

World class manufacturer of High Quartz Bricks

Our BRO HQB have an outstanding resistance to corrosion by cryolite and liquid aluminium

33 route de Castres 31250 Revel France  +335 62 71 32 32  info@fontes-refractories.com

TRANSPORT & HANDLING 69

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Optimise manufacturing and storage space with Combilift Combilift’s wide range of multidirectional forklifts, pedestrian stackers, Aisle Master articulated trucks and straddle carriers has enabled thousands of customers around the world to achieve safer, space saving and more productive handling and storage procedures. Alongside these innovative products, a free service that has long been offered by the Irish manufacturer is a warehouse layout and material flow consultation to ensure that customers make the best possible use of their space – one of their most precious commodities. In the current circumstances when businesses face the challenges of implementing social distancing, advice from Combilift’s team of design engineers is more valuable than ever. One consequence of the Coronavirus for the manufacturing sector in particular has been the challenge to get back to normal output levels whilst creating extra space in production areas so that employees maintain safe distances from each other. Combilift’s expertise in the design and layout of premises can help overcome these challenges by maximising the footprint of production areas – which is where profit is made, whilst reducing the space for storage of raw materials and finished products – which engenders costs. By optimising both these areas companies can comply with safety requirements whilst maintaining output. In times of required social distancing, Combilift can also offer a virtual site survey system, using in-house developed technology as well as video calling apps, which is quick and straightforward. In a call with Combilift, the site owner switches their phone to video mode to show a view of the site. The Combilift representative will ask them to walk through the site, stopping at specific pinch points to take a screen grab of that area. Following this initial call, they may be asked to supply some further details on the measurements and dimensions of certain areas. On the basis of this information, Combilift design engineers can supply animations and 3D designs which clearly show how a combination of the company’s Aluminium International Today

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Production area before

layout expertise and its products such as the Aisle Master articulated truck range or its multidirectional forklifts could result in a doubling of warehouse storage capacity. “We have seen a marked increase in demand for this free warehouse service,” said Combilift CEO McVicar. “Within just 24 hours of speaking to a site owner we can produce layout designs to show the substantial benefits of future-proofing

your warehouse and making the most of space - one of your most valuable commodities.” � WATCH A VIDEO HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQgEFLATS1M Contact www.combilift.com

Production area increased

September/October 2020

03/09/2020 12:26:01

Superior Rolling Mill Spray Systems A Better Design for Mill Duty Rolling • All service done from the front of the header • Never need to remove the header from the mill • Fasteners are fully retained • Highest grade elastomer seals with metal-to-metal backup • Valves can be refurbished to “As New” with full warranty after decades of service • Upgrade Kits for Installed Equipment - Robust liquid tight connectors - Long life current limiting electronics MADE IN USA

www.UnitedStatesControls.com • 330.758.1147

Designed and Built in the USA • Operating Worldwide

TRANSPORT & HANDLING 71

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Smart Casthouse Solutions: Safe, quick and productive By René Laliberté* Changing tool or equipment from best if he risks injury or death. How many prime to scrap charging, alloy charging, times in a day, does your operator need drossing, stirring, crucible handling, dross to climb in and out of its vehicle between bin handling, furnace cleaning, spout each task? Are some requiring longer cleaning and more… Could it be possible preparation to hook tools properly? Is he to use the same machine for all these tasks safe at all time? At Mecfor, we bear this without having to leave the driver’s seat? in mind, and offer an ergonomic work Managing casthouse operations implies environment so that the operator can many co-activities and aspects that must focus on the jobs that need to be done. be taken into consideration. Mecfor has designed a built-to-last vehicle Back in September 1967, it took a major that is supremely versatile. The vehicle can accident in the USA to trigger awareness be coupled easily to specially engineered to safety in a casthouse. Still today, the customised smart tools to perform Aluminum Association monitors molten specific operation. While remaining safely metal explosions, which in his cab, the operator remain an industry can switch from one preoccupation. Over tool to another in less How many times in a the years, many safety than 15 seconds, using measures were put into a push button to rigidly day, does your operator place, starting with lock it onto the mast better fitting personal apron. The hydraulic need to climb in and out of powered QuicKonnect protective equipment (PPE). system opens a range of a vehicle? Safety in casthouse possibilities to develop operations is Mecfor’ tools to better fit today’s battle horse. Twenty casthouse realities and years ago, it was bold challenges. to think that one sturdy vehicle, coupled Have you ever come a near miss accident with dedicated tools, could perform all caused by metal splashes? Mecfor vehicle casthouse operations and auxiliary tasks. provides increased protection Over time, Mecfor Smart Casthouse against explosion during loading Solution has proven its efficiency by and tending of furnaces: a triple increasing safety and optimising the fleet. protection glass assembly resists Nowadays, optimised processes, increased the impact of an explosion, the safety and production rate are of great heat of molten metal splash, and concerns. What if you could get a machine glass bursting. This advanced 100% designed for your casthouse tasks? protection is at the top of Mecfor’s Do you know that Mecfor equipment can range of built-in protection, such as safely charge 42 tonnes of aluminium into the tempered glass offering scratch melting furnace in less than 20 minutes, and heat-resistance, or the classic using a single machine offering versatility poly- carbonate synthetic glasses for other tasks. This approach addresses that can easily be replaced. many of the high-risk factors such as With Mecfor Smart Casthouse molten metal splashes hazards and Solution, the Operator humps interactions with pedestrians into a healthy and comfortable environment right from the beginning. The air quality of Increased safety and productivity: the cab is controlled having no room to compromise Safety is a necessity; no one will work his positive pressure and active

“

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filtration. His 360-degree vision is optimised by the generous windows. The rotating seat (available in option) will let him drive without blocking his vision, which is convenient when moving bulky loads. A 360- degree camera system, along with proximity scanners, will help him to see a danger that would otherwise be out of his field of view. Improving his comfort will sharpen his level of concentration. Smart Casthouse Solution to limit losses and damages What if you could prevent, even eliminate, damages to refractory in your furnace? Would this represent major savings for your organisation? Using a very efficient hydraulically powered QuicKonnect system coupled with the right tool for a task brings many benefits such as: reducing the operation time and associated energy loss, causing less refractory damages, and most of all, ensuring the safety of operators. In addition, Mecfor Smart Tool option allows to limit the speed and power of the machine functions depending on the tool that is

Sales Manager, USA www.mecfor.com Aluminium International Today

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03/09/2020 12:29:29

in used. Technology assisted operations (sequencing and programming) can help to control the human factor and limit the risks of incidents. Monitoring and analysis are also key elements to understand how to alleviate risks. To that effect, Mecfor offers an array of technologies. Technologies and design: the key to success Mecfor’s Smart casthouse solution addresses two of the higher-risk factors in casthouse operations: it reduces coactivity of several operators, and their exposure time to molten metal, while making use of good practices with tools specifically designed for an operation. By giving the operator the mean to switch tools while remaining seated in the vehicle’s cab, it much reduces the number of people/pedestrians in the casthouse surroundings. Mecfor team of experts pay close attention to the design of the QuicKonnect furnace charging and tending tools for three reasons: � Optimising the operator’s vision of the work zone; � Ensuring the adequacy and success of the operation/ task; and � Reducing the risk of damaging the refractory. Industrial forklift trucks offer an open visibility area under the tool when the mast apron is in a high position, thus exposing the machine directly to metal splashes. Mecfor’s casthouse solution provides a view above the tool, with a position of the mast apron in a shield mode when working near molten metal. This way of doing things also greatly reduces the operator’s risk of occupational back and neck injuries by promoting a relaxed and natural position of the operator during the task. If the operation requires it, a hydraulic lifting cab can be offered, as well as the installation of fixed, made to measure spacers under the cabin, so as to set the operator’s vision in the right angle/axis for his safety and comfort. In addition, the shape of each tool is designed to fit the interior of the furnaces, taking into account the level of metal present and the type of material to be loaded; this for a maximum risk control. September/October 2020

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“Mecfor Smart Tool

These technological features are very useful to develop risk prevention and power of the machine measures because they offer a complete history functions depending on of situations when Smart Tooling made an analysis is deemed the tool that is in use. necessary. MecforLink easy The Mecfor Smart Tool information (who does option allows limit to what, in what machine, be set on the speed and with what tool, at what power of the machine time of the day) can be functions, according to the tool in use. combined with the ability to review a This helps to control the human factor recorded video of an event, which makes and limits the risks of incidents (e.g.: easier to understand the circumstances. risk of fire and severe burns). Any travel In terms of modern connectivity, Mecfor speed may be interrelated to ensure a safe safety package offers the ability to trace operation, depending on the realities of operation at a specific moment. the casthouse. Customised programming offers flexibility and infinite possibilities Smart Casthouse Solution in real life of settings of the equipment. It can In 2016, Eurofoil Smelter in Luxembourg even force the operator to comply with was looking to increase operators’ safety the safety procedures in place, though during furnace loading operations. At the without reducing the performance of the time, they experienced recurrent metal splashes because the industrial forklift equipment. had to get too close to the furnace sill. The client was searching for a vehicle Operational training & data analysis: with a lifting cab giving greater visibility ways to identify best practices An approved trainer seat (available in during the operation. Also, the equipment option) for all Mecfor vehicles. This needed to maintain a safe distance of seemingly innocuous option does, 2-metre from the furnace sill. Finally, the solution had to be however, make it possible to train and coach new employees. The first hours compliant with Inspection du travail des of operation are so striking, what better mines Luxembourgeois (ITM). Mecfor than an instructor or an experienced understood its client’s needs and employee beside the trainee when he presented its Smart Casthouse Solution, drives through the plant for the first time. using the MVR22 model. The results met At each commissioning of equipment, all requirements bringing major positive a training is given to operators by one impacts on production. For decades, Mecfor has been of Mecfor’s qualified technicians. This ensures good practice and gives the right perfecting its Smart Casthouse Solution. understanding on how to work with By identifying the root cause with its customer, Mecfor team designs a Smart Mecfor Smart Casthouse Vehicle. Operator ID is another option that helps Casthouse Solution tailored for that to better supervise a junior operator by customer. The goals: restricting bad limiting his access to certain tools and/ practices, reducing number of equipment or reducing the speed of the machine required, limiting co-activities between in certain areas. This ensures that he pedestrian and vehicles; thus lessen risks will gradually get accustomed to the of accident. Customers that have been using equipment and minimises the risk of Mecfor Smart Casthouse Solution with accidents. The 360-camera recorder option and QuicKonnect technology not only have MecforLink telemetry system can follow they enjoyed a quick return on investment, step-by-step each unit and each operator but they brought their workers a safer place to work. � in their operational habits. The tool can be designed to suit round induction melting furnaces, allowing for horizontal or vertical charging.

option can limit the speed

”

Aluminium International Today

03/09/2020 12:29:33

Secondary Aluminum Melting Plant Sale Age of plant – Installed 2017 Location - Northern Ireland Summary of available equipment: • TR12 x tilt rotary furnace with 3MW oxy fuel burner system • 6 cubic meter charging machine, controls and energy chain • Hood enclosure and ductwork to connect all extraction equipment • 80,000M3/hr filter plant including pre separator skimmer, lime dosing unit, chimney, emissions monitoring equipment and platform

• 15 tonne tilting holding furnace with controls, hydraulics and 2 x 1.5MW gas burners • Diffuser degassing system with porous plugs and manual controls • 220 mould ingot casting machine, with metal filter box, casting wheel and ingot quench cooling • Robot stacking system • Control system for the above equipment

CONTACT - Paul Cameron, Interpower Induction Ltd, for details | pcameron@interpowereurope.com | +44 7799867205

www.InterpowerEurope.com

Equipment can be viewed on YouTube https://youtu.be/PvQilLU-CQk

COLLABORATION 75

Storvik has entered a multimillion-dollar contract with Hydro

FULLY AUTOMATED PNEUMATIC TUBE CLEANING MACHINE for bath- and metal tapping tubes

Storvik in Sunndalsøra has signed a contract for the supply of cast iron and cast steel products to the ﬁve Norwegian Hydro plants, which has a multimillion-dollar value, for a period of seven years. Storvik has worked closely and well with Hydro since the 1990s and the previous framework agreement was signed in 2013 and was valid until the new contract came into force on 1 July 2020. This mainly concerns metal pipes used for tapping aluminium from the electrolytic cells, but the agreement also includes other cast items. “For a long time, we have had a very good collaboration with Hydro and experienced a positive growth together through product improvement and cost-efﬁciency measures. We are very pleased and proud to be their preferred supplier,” says Ronny Reitan, department manager for the area Castings at Storvik. Various cast products The products - drain pipes, moulds, grabs, etc. - are cast in the Czech Republic and shipped to Sunndalsøra where Storvik has a security warehouse. Then the Norwegian aluminium plants will be supplied from here. The contract has a multimillion-dollar value for a period of seven years (contract term and option). Experiential development Storvik started as early as 1995 with the supply of castings to Hydro, where the development of their own material qualities, in collaboration with Hydro, was a clear success factor. Quality and a reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) has always been a focus, a testament to this is when Storvik was awarded Hydro’s Cost Improvement Award in 2020. The contract that has now been signed includes several improvement clauses, including optimizing design, increasing the product lifetime value, improving the logistic solutions, and focusing on sustainability. “We experience this as a win-win situation for both parties and look forward to working together on sustainable solutions,” says Ronny Reitan. Storvik currently has 116 employees in Norway, plus 8 in the Czech Republic and Iceland, with sales revenue of about NOK 380 million in 2019. Storvik was started as a farm smith in 1913 and today the focus is on the aluminium industry, as well as offshore. � For questions please contact: Ronny Reitan, Head of Department Castings, Mobile: 91537672 https://storvik.no/storvik-has-entered-a-multimillion-dollarcontract-with-hydro/ Aluminium International Today

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Remote control for operator safety Straight and full-length curved tubes Cleaning of hot tubes in potroom Cleaning cycle approx. 5 minutes

Use the camera on your phone to scan the QR code to watch info video

WWW.STORVIK.NO September/October 2020

07/09/2020 11:07:14

76 ASSOCIATION UPDATE

www.aluminiumtoday.com

Focus on: Dutch Aluminium Association The Dutch Aluminium Association (DAA) was established on 1 April 2020. DAA is a re-establishment of the Dutch Aluminium Centrum, which was

founded in 1985. As DAA, we represent the collective interests of the chain of aluminium producing, trading and processing companies and their speciﬁc

suppliers. This involves several objectives that contribute to a stronger position within the metal sector.

OUR VISION

OUR ADDED VALUE

OUR MISSION TO REPRESENT THE INTERESTS OF THE ALUMINIUM INDUSTRY TOGETHER WITH ITS MEMBERS.

Under the wings of the Koninklijke Metaalunie, DAA aims to stay well connected at the European level. We BRANCH MANAGERS: Bert Faessen –

Koninklijke Metaalunie

ClaudiaWillems – Koninklijke Metaalunie

September/October 2020

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KNOWLEDGE AND AWARENESS

DAA PROMOTES THE USE AND KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT OF ALUMINIUM AS THE METAL OF THE FUTURE.

PROMOTING INFLOW

We want to increase the level of knowledge of aluminium within the metalworking sector and create awareness regarding the possibilities of aluminium.

We are developing various initiatives to promote the inﬂow of employees into the aluminium sector.

GENERATE DEMAND

COHESION

DAA aims to create more demand for aluminium products. We strive to expand within existing markets as well as enter new markets.

Both within DAA and within the entire industry, we continuously create more cohesion at all levels.

can offer companies efﬁcient possibilities to broaden and deepen their internal knowledge. The strong and extensive MEMBERS OF THE BOARD: Albert Hogewoning: Highrise Leopold Moormann: Hydro Koen Melis: Melis Gieterijen Serge van der Goes: Gove Mike Kuttschreuter: Almet Benelux / Amari

network in the Netherlands makes it easier for us to ﬁnd each other in joint initiatives.

SECRETARIAT: Koninklijke Metaalunie Einsteinbaan 1 3439 NJ Nieuwegein Phone: +31 (0)30 – 6053344 E-mail: DAA@metaalunie.nl

Aluminium International Today

07/09/2020 09:45:53

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78 ENVIRONMENT

Filter Designs believe in a greener future. A cleaner environment means the world to them, and everything they do contributes to delivering it. Their knowledge and expertise, gained over many years in the sector, means they design and build carefully considered, creative and innovative air-filtration solutions for their worldwide client base. The business was formed in 2001 by Roger Callis. Roger alone has 45 years’ experience in the industry, including the pioneering of Ceramic Filter Technologies. In 2012 his son, Simon Callis took over the day-to-day operation of the business as Managing Director, and the business now specialises in hot gas filtration and dust extraction for industries across the world. Turnkey plants are their core business, delivering filter systems with ceramic elements, filter bags or cartridges to a variety of industries including the glass and aluminium manufacturing sectors. Systems have been deployed across the globe, from the United Kingdom, to overseas projects that include the USA, China, Singapore, Finland, Azerbaijan, the Czech Republic and Poland. Filter Designs can, as the name suggests, design filter system to suit specific requirements. Projects have been undertaken for a variety of Aluminium sites – inside, outside, with and without acid gas treatment and with a variety of dust collection solutions using lean phase conveying along a pipe to a silo, via inclined screw conveyor or simply direct to bulk bag. Aluminium is at their core The aluminium sector is an important part of their client base. Projects have been delivered to Swansea, Wrexham, Middlesbrough, Fort William, Coventry in the past few years, each system being designed in partnership with clients and running 24/7 within the expected plant shutdowns. Despite the lockdown, Filter Designs have continued to work hard for their clients, and during the summer of 2020, they’ve been completing an important project for a long-term client. Over the past 10 years, Filter Designs have acted in a consultancy role to Milver Metals. Based in Coventry in the West Midlands, they are the UK’s largest provider of primary and secondary aluminium. They comprise of various complementary activities – aluminium waste recycling, copper waste recycling and metrology. They also enhance the aluminium production with a foundry specialising in the production of copper based secondary production as well as the manufacture of copper-based master alloys. September/October 2020

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www.aluminiumtoday.com

Clean air means the world to Filter Designs Below: Filter Designs Project Team LtoR Darren Jones - Stewart Callis - Simon Callis

Solving the problem Over the years the over-riding issue Filter Designs has identified remains the same - the temperature at the filter inlet being lower than that required to remain above acid gas dew point. The net result of which has led to premature ageing of the filter fabrications and an increased differential pressure across the filter media. The raised differential pressure is brought about by the dust being harder to release from the bag when the reverse cleaning action is applied. A higher differential pressure results in less volume from the fan and therefore less extraction at the hood where it is required. Additionally, filter bag life was shorter than envisaged requiring more frequent replacement at considerable expense and loss of production. Past work has involved the installation of dampers to limit cold air being introduced into the ducts when other furnaces have not been in use, which saw some improvement in temperatures reaching the filters. Filter Designs have always seen the use of a reverse air type filter to be adding to the problem, taking in large amounts of ambient air to reverse clean the filters. In 2018 they were contracted to replace one half of one of the 3 main filters on Milver’s site (see the Frankenfilter project at www.filterdesigns.com/hot-gasfiltration/project-mm/). This has proved much of their theory and has been successful in extending filter bag life, as the original filter bags are still in use and operate at lower differential pressure than the reverse air half. Shortly before the Coronavirus pandemic hit, they won a new contract with Milver Metals to replace one of the reverse air filters along with the ducting and fan. With the whole Filter

Designs team working from home, the project was continued throughout. A new ‘Cleanpulse’ 977 bag filter will be delivered to site during August to replace the outgoing corroded reverse air filter which serves a large canopy hood over the door of an aluminium smelting furnace. Cleanpulse filter offers the solution The Cleanpulse filter is constructed in 3 large pre-insulated and clad sections of 12x14 filter bags. The filter bags are of a material with a higher maximum operating temperature than the outgoing filter which gives a much wider temperature operating window above the acid dew point. An air bleed damper works in conjunction, and additional heat is retained with the lagging and cladding of the ducting from the hood to the filter. The pulsing of the filter bags is controlled through an Italian manufactured reverse jet pulse controller to Viton equipped valves. Aluminium International Today

03/09/2020 12:39:42

ENVIRONMENT 79

www.aluminiumtoday.com

‘Dirty’ aluminium was a problem Taking scrap Aluminium and melting down in a furnace to produce specification aluminium ingots produces fume and smoke. For another valued client, the local authority in Middlesbrough had recognised that an improvement to the direct extraction to atmosphere could be made. For the client in 2014, it was more profitable to buy in ‘dirty’ aluminium scrap to process which produces the most fume and smoke from the plastics, increasing the need to remove the pollutants prior to the chimney exit. Filter Designs solved it! The owner of the business wanted to ensure the future compliance of the process emissions and had an opportunity for some external funding for the project. Filter Designs’ solution was a bag filter suited to hot gases. The complete and final package included: � Ducting � Mechanical spark trap � Grecon spark detection and arrest � Air dilution cooling valve � Automatic filter bypass protection � Compressor system � High temperature components � HMI control panel

The same type of pulse equipment as the filter installed on site in 2018 was specified to ensure continuity of spares, making maintenance much easier for Milver. A dust monitor was installed in the outgoing duct from the filter and linked to the pulse cleaning system to monitor for dust breaches and also diagnose the location of the breach, saving time and the associated expense of locating the issue. A simple discharge system was included, comprising of a valley hopper, an outlet screw, rotary valve discharging into a bulk bag hung below. The support frame was galvanised and isolated from the filter body by means of a heat isolation pad which prevents heat soak in the filter leading to the formation of acid gas attack. A total of 8kW of heat pads have been added to the hopper to aid maintaining heat in the filter during a shutdown or in-operation. This helps speed the filter through the problematic cold phase on restarts. Aluminium International Today

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More than just a filter In addition to the filter, they also provided a spark arrest box which for that last 5 years has been working successfully when installed at a similar Aluminium recycling plant in Middlesbrough. This was also insulated and clad prior to delivery to site and is easily maintained and provides an extra element of protection for the filter bags. The final element was a surge hopper to supply metered dosing of hydrated lime from an existing lime silo. The lime dosing equipment operates autonomously and handles the injection of lime into the ducting of all 3 main filters on site to counteract the acid gasses, neutralising the corrosive properties. The plant was supplied by Filter Designs and installed by Milver Metals themselves (Filter Designs obviously made it look easy back in 2018!) with the full install including electrical, controls and commissioning completed over 5-6 weeks. As with every project, the Filter Designs project consultant was on-hand throughout the install for ongoing advice and support.

Following a site survey, the complete plant was modelled. Due to knowledge of other Aluminium sites that have continuous or periodic emissions monitoring, Filter Designs suggested injecting sodium bicarbonate full-time and activated carbon when dirty scrap was being melted. To allow different modes to be used, they arrived at a 3-position switch which the operators adjusted to suit the day/ night operations. Suffice to say, Filter Designs relish a challenge, and can call upon their vast experience to solve complex issue for their clients. The future is bright Filter Designs are proud of their heritage. Their success is down to the fact that they have moved with the times, and continue to offer cost-effective, forward-thinking and innovative solutions to their client’s challenges. In the words of Simon, “Keeping emissions low on Aluminium Furnaces around the world really is working towards a cleaner future for us all”. Find out more about Filter Designs, and the projects they have delivered at www. filterdesigns.com. � Contact www.filterdesigns.com

September/October 2020

03/09/2020 12:40:49

ADVERTORIAL: OUTOTEC

Impurities Control in Bayer Circuit By Alessio Scarsella Director, Light Metals Metso Outotec

When it comes to impurities in the Bayer Process, there is not a single way to address the issue. Several problems caused by unwanted substances in the Bauxite and process by-products are complex. Some impurities undermine the quality of the product, reduce production or increase operation costs, but at the same time, impurities can also increase the solubility of alumina into the caustic liquor. Several side processes are frequently needed inside the refinery to keep the impurities under control. In this article, we will address the effects and control techniques of three main impurities found in an alumina refinery: oxalate, carbonate and silica. INTRODUCTION Inside the Bayer Process, highly caustic liquors are used to digest bauxite ore at elevated temperatures and pressures. The process is based on the different solubilities of the minerals embedded in the bauxite allowing those wanted for alumina production (Gibbsite and Boehmite) to be dissolved into the caustic liquor. The remaining minerals are discharged in residual streams. Due to the strong conditions used in digestion, a small fraction of other minerals, mainly oxide-hydroxide and hydroxide anions are dissolved into the liquor as well [1]. Due to the cyclic nature of the Bayer process, the additional dissolved substances concentrate further as the liquor is reused. TYPES OF BAUXITE AND THEIR IMPURITIES The composition of Bauxites from various locations has been greatly compared, and although it can vary within a region and even within the same mine, the following “know-how” regarding possible impurities and their respective operational problems has been compiled: � Carbonate Bauxites (also known as Karst Bauxites, e.g. Greece and Jamaica Bauxite), have high contents of inorganic carbons as product of their formation over carbonate minerals. Due to their composition and combined with low extractable alumina, they tend to generate high concentration of sulfate, organic salts and oxalate throughout their refining process [1]. � Bauxite from Guinea, India and Jamaica have a relatively high content of phosphate that needs to be controlled to avoid final product contamination [2]. � Indian Bauxite contents heavy metals like titanium and vanadium that need to be removed from the process by special techniques [2]. September/October 2020

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� Bauxite with high content of fine goethite requires special treatment to achieve a successful clarification of the pregnant liquor [3]. � When using high temperature digestion, high content of goethite or Al-goethite (aluminous goethite) may cause final product contamination with iron. At approximately 230250°C, the Aluminium trapped in the goethite structure is released while goethite/Al-goethite transform into hematite. The presence of aluminate in the Bayer liquors severely retards the iron transformation reactions possible due to the formation of intermediate species [Na-Fe-Al-O]. Consequently, untransformed goethite remains in the pregnant liquor. The fine goethite can be floated by the air bubbles and can be carried into the thickeners overflow, which reduces the quality of the product alumina [7]. � Bauxite with high silica content will require additional processing to allow formation of DSP (De-Silication Product). � When processing Brazilian Bauxite, impurities can be kept controlled through losses on the residual streams: DSP, red mud and product [1].

A fair amount of processes have been designed to control the effects of the impurities mentioned above. There is special interest to treat those impurities that modify alumina solubility in liquor and reduce the aluminate precipitation yield, like organic compounds and carbonate. IMPURITIES IMPACT AND CONTROL Silica Silicate compounds is a type of impurity presented in almost all types of bauxite, they are fairly divided in those that can react with the caustic liquor, also named reactive silica and predominantly formed by Kaolinite; and those that do not interact with the caustic liquor, which is basically quartz. In the presence of caustic liquor, kaolinite dissolves at temperatures between 80-95°C. An appropriate residence time allowed the formation of De-Silication Product (DSP, sodalite, cancrinite or a mixture of both) which is a stable silicate compound that can be removed with the red mud [1] . This is known as pre-desilication process and it is quite useful to remove not only silica, but also other inorganics impurities, such as sulfates, carbonates and chloride. As the DSP is formed, some of the mentioned salts are trapped into the cages of sodalite and cancrinite [1]. Aluminium International Today

10/09/2020 09:28:40

ADVERTORIAL: OUTOTEC 81

Although convenient, pre-desilication is a costly operational practice. The dissolution of silicates and the subsequent precipitation of the DSP consumes amount of soda, however failure to pre-treat the bauxite through pre-desilication will result in heavy scaling around heat transfer areas causing higher operating costs through increased energy consumption and equipment downtime. Carbonate Carbonate salts are usually the largest impurities presented in the Bayer Process. Typically, carbonate removal rates are approximately 20-30 kg of NaCO3 per ton of alumina [1]. These components are accumulated in the liquor as products of the degradation of organic compounds during digestion. Additionally, a small portion of carbonate come from the dissolution of inorganic carbonate salts. As carbonates concentration increase, the caustic concentration and thereto the productivity of the liquor decreases, thus carbonates need to be removed and replaced with caustic. This is done throughout causticisation process. Inside the causticisation plant, a side stream usually from the clarified overflow of the red mud washers is treated with milk of lime (calcium hydroxide). The sodium carbonate contained in the liquor reacts lime inside an agitated tank at approximately 90-100°C. The resulting product is calcium carbonate and TCA (Tricalcium Aluminate). The process, although simple, is not quite efficient in terms of lime consumption. Typically, the efficiency of the causticisation process is between 45-55%, and it is calculated as the amount of lime that actually removes carbonate in relation to the total amount of lime added [1]. The remaining lime is either converted to TCA or remain in the mixture unreacted. The causticisation performance can be highly improved by increasing the temperature of the reaction. High temperature causticisation processes patented by Worsley and Alcoa are successfully operating accomplishing efficiencies above 90%. Oxalate It is widely known that Oxalate is one of the most present impurity in an alumina refinery. It can be found in almost all Bayer liquor streams. Oxalate is generated by the oxidative degradation of high molecular organics (HMW) contained in the Bauxite. It has been determined that approximately 15% of HMW converts into Oxalate at low temperature digestion but this quantity can double in a high temperature digestors [4]. The oxalate itself does not represent a problem in the refinery when it is completely dissolved into the caustic liquor, the problem arises when the continuous recycling of the liquor builds up a concentration as oxalate precipitates in those points where the temperature of the process decreases. The solid phase oxalate (SPO) is found primarily in the precipitation circuit when there are no impurity control mechanisms in place [5]. The main consequences of having SPO in the precipitation circuit are: Aluminium International Today

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� The quality of the alumina produced is undermined with high content of oxalate [5]; � Gibbsite fines are largely formed affecting the seed classification area [5]; � Decrease in precipitation yield [5]; � Particle breakage increases during hydrate calcination [5]. The impurity control processes for oxalate are largely defined to prevent the formation of SPO by following two steps. The first step seeks to remove the oxalate from the process liquors; and the second carries out the disposal or destruction of it. Oxalate removal can be achieved through side-stream removal or co-precipitation. In side-stream oxalate removal, as the name indicates, a portion of the liquor is treated to force oxalate crystallization aided by additive and adsorbents. Another method requires to modify the ionic strength of the liquor to force precipitation. This method is called “salting out” and basically consists in evaporate a side stream of liquor up to reach a Total Soda (TS) concentrations of 450-550 g/l. This method is also used for impurity control of organics components and carbonates. Since the sodium oxalate is a toxic material, its disposal needs to comply to the local environmental regulations. Further treatment is needed to avoid formation of toxic dust if a solid cake rich in oxalate is disposed jointly with bauxite residual solids, or a liquid stream is discharged with the red mud and the decanted liquids return to the refinery. Usually the solids are calcined or causticized and then disposed along side bauxite residuals.

1. Rosenberg, S. Impurity Removal in Bayer Process. Proceedings of 35th International ICSOBA Conference, Hamburg, Germany, 2-5 October 2017. 2. N.K. Kshatriya and P.K.N Raghavan. Improvement in Vanadium salt separation. In International conference on non-ferrous metals, 2005, Pune, India, July 8-9, 2005. 3. F.R. Feret and J. See. Occurrence and characterization of Zn an Mn in Bauxite. In 135th Annual meeting and Exhibition of Minerals, Metals and Material Society (TMS), San Antonio, Texas, March 1316, 2016, 41-45 4. Lever, G. Some aspects of the chemistry of bauxite organic matter on the Bayer process: the sodium oxalate-humate interaction. Travaux ICSOBA 13(18), 1983, 335-347. 5. T.S. Li et all. The influence of solid phase oxalate (SPO) on gibbsite secondary nucleation in synthetic caustic-aluminate solution, In 10th International Alumina Workshop, Perth, Australia, 19-23 April 2015, 165-174. 6. Baiyong Zhang at all. Effect of Organic Impurity on Seed Precipitation in Sodium Aluminate Solution, In Light Metals 2018, The Minerals, Metals & Materials Series, 2018, 41-47. 7. F. Wu, Aluminous goethite in the Bayer process and its impact on alumina recovery and settling, in PhD Thesis: Department of Chemistry. 2012, Curtin University: Western Australia. p. 228.

Learn more at www.outotec.com/aluminum-insights

September/October 2020

10/09/2020 09:28:43

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ENERGY 83

www.aluminiumtoday.com

Energy storage and an energy intensive industry By Matthew Lumsden*

The move towards distributed non dispatchable renewable generation is adding complexity into the energy model and the technical and market mechanisms that will enable load to match generation will continue to evolve for some time yet. In addition to these anticipated trends the impact that COVID 19 has had on commercial and industrial demand is not trivial. The macro-picture is therefore complex and to some extent includes unforeseen factors that are diffi cult to predict. What is clear however, is that energy will continue to become an increasingly important cost component in manufacturing industry and that ‘energy’ is not as simple as it used to be. The energy solution often now needs to factor in carbon, emissions/air quality, noise, resilience, peak-load and constraint management, changing load profi les, onsite generation and revenue, as well as cost. By way of illustration at Connected Energy we are regularly receiving enquiries from parties wanting to fl atten expensive peak loads, enable an increase in site load, maximise the value of on-

Connected Energy is an engineering led innovator in energy storage. Its technologies, that utilise second-life electric vehicle batteries, are rapidly changing the way intensive energy users can access the beneﬁts of lowcost, on-site solutions. The E-STOR system is modular and scalable, as well as straightforward to install and operate for energy intensive clients to ﬂexibly control and reduce their energy costs and develop new revenue streams.

site PV and maximise revenue generation opportunities. Questions often relating to the use of a battery energy storage system (BESS) to help optimise a site system. Historically the low carbon energy related incentives initiated by UK government have been technology focussed – ROCs, FiTs, RHI and incentives towards the installation of EV chargers (to name only a handful) have encouraged the deployment of technologies but have not supported companies in delving into the detail of system optimisation. More recently Innovate UK (one of the UK government’s technology innovation funding agencies) has begun funding several large scale demonstration projects focussing on local energy systems that aim to explore how relatively autonomous assets operating within a defi ned region can be optimised as a system (see https:// www.c-e-int.com/smarthubs/) Whilst the project boundaries are greater than those of a typical commercial site, these larger systems offer new opportunities for

discrete sites to add value to their assets. The on-site, behind-the-meter installation of BESS can provide a new revenue source through the provision of services to the Transmission System Operator(TSO) and in some cases to the local Distribution Network Operator (DNO/DSO). Network operators have a continual requirement to manage the balance between energy supply and demand on the network and through a number of market mechanisms reward energy storage operators for charging or discharging their systems as and when required. Once a system is installed on site, the revenue generation is typically achieved via a third-party aggregator who contracts with the network operators. The commercial justifi cation for this type of model varies across international markets and can also be impacted signifi cantly by measures implemented by local network operators. However, referring back to the system approach mentioned earlier, energy

*CEO, Connected Energy Limited, www.c-e-int.com Aluminium International Today

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84 ENERGY

storage has a role to play in optimising a site energy system or in facilitating greater utilisation: � Where peaks in the load profile are increasing fixed network charges, the system can be charged in advance then discharged to flatten the peaks, � Where load spikes are threatening to breach connection constraints, the BESS can be discharged so that part of the required supply is pulled from the storage unit. Often the cost of connection upgrades is significant and storage can be a much lower cost solution. A project recently modelled by Connected Energy enabled a £600k energy storage system to replace a £2.6m connection upgrade thereby enable a manufacturing site to be diversified. � Where on-site generation exists, the use of this low-cost energy can be managed so that export is minimised or time shifted so that more is used to reduce energy pulled from the grid during higher tariff periods. Often on-site generation also requires a connection upgrade, the cost of which may be mitigated by the installation of a BESS. � Energy storage can also be used to provide back-up power during outages.

www.aluminiumtoday.com

Whilst often systems are not designed to provide the instantaneous response of a UPS, they can provide a very fast response potentially coming into play after the UPS has fulfilled its initial purpose. The key to achieving this more complex utilisation of a BESS is the control software. The Connected Energy management platform for example, enables multiple value streams to be captured by creating a hierarchy of business rules that determine the conditions under which a BESS should charge or discharge. A schedule is used to determine intervals when the system should typically charge or discharge, but this also interacts with rules relating to metered points on site, these might be specific loads or sources of generation. In addition to these operating conditions, the system can also interact with demand response aggregators who may need to charge or discharge the battery to meet the requirements of the grid operator. It is important to recognise that in using the system to provide a range of functions it is likely that some opportunities will be sub-optimised. So, for example, if part of the capacity must always be available to

provide back-up power, the amount of capacity available to charge from on-site renewable generation will be reduced. But often the net value of the combined value streams provides a better overall business case. One challenge of operating a BESS simply to generate revenue from grid services, is that all the revenue carries merchant risk that can span more than 20 years. By identifying additional site-system related benefits the overall investment risk can be reduced. Something else that should be considered is the location of the BESS on site. Installation costs can often make or break a business case. Installing a system close to a connection point thereby reducing cable runs and utilising an existing hard standing can make a very material impact on the project costs. So, in considering the installation of a BESS it is worth undertaking a detailed review of how the system and its operation could be optimised to create value for the business. Current operations, connection conditions and tariff structure are all likely to impact upon the ideal system configuration, operating model and business case. �

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08/09/2020 10:48:41

www.aluminiumtoday.com

EVENT PREVIEW: ICSOBA 85

ICSOBA goes virtual: 16th - 18th November 2020 In all past years, the ICSOBA forum was the scene of five-day gatherings in various parts of the globe. Due to the COVID-19 withdrawal of the 38th ICSOBA 2020 event in Jinan, China had to be induced. Containment strategies, travel restriction and overall economic situation of aluminium industry combine to challenge conference organisation in present time. However, it is important to realise that the businesses should continue to innovate so that it comes out stronger once these tough times are over. Promoting industry players collaboration through exchange of ideas and know-how is as important as ever to endeavour a swift recovery from COVID-19 pandemic. This is why ICSOBA 2020 is maintained and will be held as a virtual conference to ensure health, safety and comfort for all delegates, in line with our vision to be “the technology conference of aluminium industry, for aluminium industry”. And who knows, this unfortunate situation could become the cradle for a new kind of technology conference? Conference Organisation Therefore, the ICSOBA Board of Directors decided on live webcasting a 3-day virtual annual ICSOBA conference online. The webcasts will take place Monday 16 November – Wednesday 18 November and will feature most known forms like live seminars, live discussions, and even a virtual exhibition. Sadly, no plant visits and no excursions will be possible this year. A modern platform supporting such conference format, even if obviously not providing the face to face quality of interaction, will nevertheless be able to offer ICSOBA delegates, sponsors, and exhibitors a highly valuable experience. Delegates and speakers will share their latest developments with live Q&A sessions (chat and/or audio) among the delegates in a lively environment. We strongly believe in the conference success for a fraction of the cost and without travel and accommodation expenses. The speakers will prepare and submit their pre-recorded presentation before the event. The presentations will run within the time slot dedicated within the conference agenda and the author will be Aluminium International Today

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ICSOBA asked to be available online to answer the questions of the audience. The QA session will be held either in chat form or live audio conversation. Sessions will be organised around two parallel streams: � Bauxite, Bauxite Residue and Alumina � Smelting and Carbon Due to different time zones it is impossible to offer comfortable timewindows to all participants. In order to offer widest time zone coverage and best comfort to delegates, daily sessions will be duplicated: Session: Day x – Stream A – Session 1A - Table 1 Session: Day x – Stream A – Session 1B - Table 2 Each session will see 9 presentations of 20 minutes and two keynote presentations of 30 minutes, both including 5 minutes Q&A. The official program of the conference will be available on 1 October 2020. At time of writing those lines the Organisers

can confirm submission of 92 abstracts. Table 3. The confirmed keynote speakers are: � Abdulla Habib (Chief Operating Officer, Aluminium Bahrain) - Alba’s Journey to 1.5 Million Tonnes Site Capacity - Challenges and Opportunities. � G.G. Pal (Chief Operating Officer, Vedanta Limited, India) - Growth of Indian Aluminium Industry and Vedanta. � Paul Adkins (Managing Director, AZ China Limited, Hong Kong) - China’s Aluminium Industry – Why It Is in Seriously Bad Health. � Christopher Bayliss (Deputy Secretary General, International Aluminium Institute, United Kingdom) - Long Term Sustainability of the Aluminium Sector (2020-2050). � Carl Firman and Uday Patel (Principal Analyst and Senior Research Manager, Wood Mackenzie, United Kingdom) Aluminium Market Outlook Across the Value Chain. � Jerome Lucaes (Director Marketing and Sustainability, RUSAL, Zug, Switzerland) - Evolution of Low-Carbon Aluminium in the Market for More Sustainable Economic Development. September/October 2020

07/09/2020 11:17:42

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EVENT PREVIEW: ICSOBA 87

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EXHIBITION

TABLE 1. Session: Day x – Stream A – Session 1A Hour

Brisbane

Beijing

Dubai

Paris

Sao Paulo

Montreal

Start

16:00

14:00

10:00

7:00

3:00

1:00

End

20:00

18:00

14:00

11:00

7:00

5:00

TABLE 2. Session: Day x – Stream A – Session 1B Hour

Brisbane

Beijing

Dubai

Paris

Sao Paulo

Montreal

Start

22:00

20:00

16:00

13:00

9:00

7:00

End

2:00

0:00

20:00

17:00

13:00

11:00

TABLE 3. Domain No of Submitted Abstracts

Keynote

Bauxite

Alumina

Carbon

Aluminium

Total

During the Conference, a virtual Exhibition of latest technologies, equipment, and other devices for the aluminium industry is planned (16 - 18 November). Each exhibitor will obtain a “virtual booth”, in which the selected company information can be placed. In the booth selected activities and realisations can be presented, supported by documents, video, audio and chat. Dedicated web meetings with customers may be organised as well.

REGISTRATION

All information regarding conference fees, conference sponsorship options as well as access to Virtual Exhibition are available from the Virtual ICSOBA 2020 dedicated page on ICSOBA website: https://icsoba. org/2020/ Please note that registrations have already started. As in the past, the registration process is managed by ConfTool, which is customised for ICSOBA 2020 Conference. The access to ConfTool is: https://www.conftool.net/icsoba2020. ICSOBA Board is looking forward welcoming you to this pioneer event in the history of aluminium industry technical conferences.

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as the voice of authority on the future of aluminium manufacturing, the next edition will take place online. Find out more: www.futurealuminiumforum.com

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Materials for a low-carbon world With electrification, the car industry has come a long way toward meeting demands to reduce tailpipe emissions. Now the next challenge is to work for CO2 neutrality in the production of the car. To achieve this, we need low-carbon materials, low-emission manufacturing and lower production waste. This is why Hydro has invested for more than 10 years in new technology to be able to develop low-carbon, high-quality primary aluminium and efficient manufacturing. We are working to ensure all our sites are certified through the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative and investing in research and development in technology for better use of our material. Visit hydro.com/reduxa to learn more.