Economics of Extruding Aluminum

There was a time when steel was the king of all metal. In fact, in the eighteenth century, the use of steel was one of the primary factors in accelerating the advancement of America. Under such great people as Andrew Carnegie, the steel industry played a key role in building modern New York, Chicago, Toronto and many other cities across North America.

Role of Aluminum

Today, that role is slowly being taken over by aluminum. The business of aluminum extrusion has grown at such a fast pace over the past few decades. Companies are scrambling to meet demand and are adding new shifts to an already very busy factory line. The extrusion process is undergoing improvements to increase the efficiency. Aluminum profiles and shapes have expanded to include many different sizes and shapes, which make them available for use in many types of industries.

Industries using Aluminium

One of the top industries that are increasing its use of this light, durable metal is the auto industry. In recent years, as the need for fuel-efficient vehicles has grown, the need for aluminum manufacturing also increased. The reason is quite simple. Aluminum alloy is light and durable, and that makes it perfect for light vehicles that want to achieve good fuel efficiency. In the past, cars were made out of very heavy steel, and that was fine up until the need for fuel efficiency came about.

In fact, as the industry moves towards electrification, the use of aluminum is bound to continue to rise across the globe. Hybrid cars, as well as pure electric cars, are increasingly replacing steel with aluminum due to its lightweight. And that is bound to continue, especially as companies such as BMW and Tesla increase their focus on electric cars.

Extrusion Processes

The process of extruding aluminum is the primary process which takes the raw material and transforms it into useful shapes, profiles and forms. It is usually as a cylindrical aluminum billet and is forced through a shaped die. It is compressed and heated which forces the metal to take the desired shape.

Usually, companies want to receive their aluminum extruded shapes in the form of long logs. These can be easily transported via trucks to the factories around the country. Another common form for aluminium is sheets. Some aluminum manufacturer prefers to have it is sheets because they can easily be compressed into various useful shapes. For example, the door of a car or the wing of an airplane usually starts as a sheet of aluminum, and then get compressed into shape and treated with certain chemicals to make it almost as strong as steel.

Advancements in the Industry

As the need has increased, there has been an increase in innovation in the aluminum fabrication industry as of late. For example, the t slot extrusion aluminum processing has been improved to produce better results and in less time. Additionally, the variety of extruded aluminum stock shapes has been expanded to produce new shapes that can be useful to a variety of manufacturers. Many extrusion companies have departments that are responsible to monitor and to always be on the lookout for improvements in the system.

Many companies are increasingly putting more resources on research and development to produce better aluminum products. Signature Aluminum Manufacturing has been one of those leading companies that provide extruded aluminum products to the Canadian sector and are always looking for ways to innovate and to improve the extrusion process.

References: extrudedaluminumfabrication.wordpress.com