By Kevin Widlic, Contributing Editor.
Pennsylvania’s Schuylkill County is home to the biggest aluminum extrusion plant in North America. The Cressona plant may also be the oldest, having been built more than 80 years ago. Now, after its latest round of investments, the company believes it is setting the table for many more good years to come.
On the morning of October 1, Hydro welcomed Pennsylvania state and Schuylkill County dignitaries to a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Cressona plant to celebrate the site’s new extrusion press and expanded aluminum recycling capacity (Figure 1). The plant is the largest manufacturing employer in the county, with more than 1,100 people, and the $100 million that Hydro spent on new equipment and capabilities for the plant is also a positive in Pennsylvania’s push for more advanced manufacturing. According to Hydro, the two investments were completed on time and both came in under budget.
“The company’s investment shows its confidence in our strong workforce and business climate and is a great example of why we’re focused on manufacturing as a key sector in the Commonwealth’s Economic Development Strategy,” said Rick Siger, secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development. “Having a major manufacturer like Hydro continue to grow its roots in our Commonwealth sends a strong message to other businesses looking to expand or move to Pennsylvania that we are open for business.”
In addition to Siger, who works for Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, the ceremony attracted representatives from the offices of U.S. Senators John Fetterman and Bob Casey. Each of the speeches expressed appreciation for the company’s commitment to Cressona and the community.
“At Hydro, we are grateful for the support of the state and the local community. Our Cressona facility has been a cornerstone of Schuylkill County for nearly four generations, a legacy made possible by these strong relationships,” said Mike Hammer, VP and general manager of Hydro Extrusion North America’s Industrial Region. “We are proud to supply the building blocks of American manufacturing across almost every industry, and we look forward to doing so for many years to come.”
The plant manufactures more than 250 million lbs of extrusions annually for customers primarily in the automotive, transportation, distribution, and infrastructure industries. Its 1.7 million sq ft site houses 11 extrusion presses, three extrusion ingot casting units, fabrication capabilities, and a distribution warehouse — shipping more than 700,000 lbs per week.
New Indirect Extrusion Press
The Cressona plant was built in 1942 during World War II to extrude aluminum used in the U.S. war effort. The new indirect extrusion press that Hydro installed at the plant actually replaces two water hydraulic presses that were built just prior to the war, in 1938.
The new press, which has been named Press 19, is a 3,000 tonne, 12 inch indirect extrusion press built and delivered by Presezzi S.p.A. It has advanced automation and monitoring systems, a COIM log furnace and billet delivery system, and a Cometal handling system. It is expected to increase productivity by 36% and reduce material consumption by 9%. Operating the new asset will also have a positive impact on the site’s Scope 1 and 2 carbon footprint.
Press 19’s automation allows the plant to operate the press with fewer people on the log-loading end of the press as well as on the exit end, with extrusion handling, stacking, and racking. In addition, the monitoring systems contain the latest technologies, which allow for enhanced precision of control through the extrusion process. “This gives the press the ability to optimize the extrusion process variables that drive more refined and homogeneous metallurgical properties in the product through closed-loop controls that are unachievable with existing, antiquated methods,” said Jason Adams, senior director of Operations for Hydro Extrusion Cressona.
It works like this: The new automation on the press includes a robot arm that coats separating lubricant on the ends of the billets as they are moved into the container between each extrusion run (Figure 2). The pullers grab the ends of the metal exiting the die and pull the extruded metal down the length of the runout table with full automation. From there, the product is stretched at a head-and-tail stock station. The stretching operation is also fully automated.
Once stretched, the product is cut to specific lengths (Figure 3). This process is also automated, but is monitored by operators. Finally, the product is automatically stacked in racks off the press, while specially designed spacers are placed between the layers of the extrusions using an automatic conveyor system.
Adams smiled and pointed out that “all these processes require human intervention on older presses. So, you could say, once it is fully commissioned, that the press is essentially fully automated and can be operated from one central pulpit, or command center, filled with displays from cameras so that the operators could monitor at each stage of the process and intervene when needed.”
The two water hydraulic extrusion presses — both indirect presses — are still running and will continue to do so through the end of this year. Once all the capacity from the two presses is transferred in early 2025, Hydro will begin demolition to make space for Cressona’s next new press, a large high-performance piercing press.
The Press 19 investment project also required an 11,000 sq ft building expansion, which was managed by Miller Brothers Construction Inc. of Schuylkill Haven and included various local subcontractors and service providers.
The Advantages of Indirect Extrusion
In the direct extrusion process, the die is stationary and the press ram applies pressure onto the heated billet, which is pushed through the die. In indirect extrusion, the ram carries the die and pushes against the billet in the opposite direction of extrusion. This means the billet remains stationary in relation to the container and, as a result, there is no billet-to-container friction influence. On the contrary, the force during extrusion is relatively constant from the front of the extrusion to the rear.1
Indirect extrusion is not as versatile as the direct extrusion process, as the cross-sectional area is confined by the stem’s maximum size. In addition, the defects and impurities on the billet’s surface affect the extrusion’s surface. So why use indirect extrusion?
Adams explained that the main point of utilizing indirect extrusion is the 25-30% reduction in friction between the billet and the extrusion wall, compared with direct extrusion technology. This reduction helps create several important benefits.
“By reducing friction, you allow the process to give larger outputs. You can also enhance extrusion speed and allow the production of smaller cross sections,” he said. “This also provides lower levels of heat generation, much better control of metal flow, improved surface quality, longer die life and reduced wear of the container. All of this translates to higher quality products, both from a surface standpoint and from a metallurgical internal structure standpoint. These are critical requirements when producing products where these enhanced material characteristics can outperform what is produced by our competitors using direct press methods.”
Once the two vintage presses are decommissioned, the Cressona plant will operate with a total of four indirect presses. This is more than any other site in North America.
Adams noted that the decision to build a new indirect press has added complexities in operation — and cost to the project — but that it makes sense for the plant’s product mix because of the product advantages that indirect presses generate over direct presses. “We can produce tighter dimensional tolerances, longer lengths for the commercial transportation markets, and at lower cost, due to manufacturing efficiencies such as higher productivity and much-improved projected recoveries,” he said. “We will be capable of taking the existing product mix from the two old presses and enhancing quality and improving profitability on the existing portfolio of business.”
Hydro hopes to use the incremental capacity for customer applications in several industries, including commercial transportation, and in the distribution segment. “The expertise we have in Cressona in running and maintaining indirect presses over many decades provides us with an advantage that is realized by our customers and adds to our overall market strategy and value proposition,” said Adams.
Changing Jobs for the Better
The automation on Press 19 also allows Hydro to eliminate the jobs that generate the highest safety risks — specifically, those related to the handling of metal at the exit end of the press. This is a key benefit for a large manufacturer striving to achieve a zero-injury culture.
As Hydro replaces archaic machinery with more highly automated equipment, the company reduces its need for operational personnel. In Cressona, the company is transferring its most experienced operators into open positions on other manual presses at the site. But over the longer term, as the automation expands, Adams said the company will need to bring in new types of skills, noting, “We are going to require talents in the realm of engineering: automation engineers, electrical engineers, PLC technicians, and computer programmers — highly trained, degreed professionals who will have a passion to use their talents in the world of manufacturing.”
A Boost in Post-Consumer Scrap Recycling
The investment to increase Cressona’s aluminum recycling capacity required a 42,000 sq ft facility expansion and, as with Press 19, led to the demolition of other World War II-era assets — in this case, three buildings. That said, in the spirit of sustainability, Hydro repurposed more than 25,000 tonnes of concrete and brick from the demolished buildings into the foundations of the new facility, while over 200 tonnes of steel from the demolition were recycled.
Hydro designed the recycling expansion project, titled internally as Bay 0, to substantially increase the use of post-consumer scrap (metal previously used in actual customer products and discarded at end-of-life). This metal is considered to have a zero-carbon footprint.2 As a result, while the expansion provides a 22% increase in billet production capacity at Hydro Cressona, bringing it to 272,000 tonnes per year, the boost in post-consumer scrap recycling will reduce the facility’s already-low Scope 3 carbon footprint by around 5%, explained Adams. “The more purchased scrap we can buy as a raw material input, the more post-consumer scrap we can use,” he said. “These enhanced recycling capabilities support the shift toward a closed-loop system.”
The Bay 0 project gives Cressona the largest single-site recycling capacity tied directly to an aluminum extrusion operation in the U.S. More importantly, the increase in capacity at the “wall-to-wall” recycler now allows the plant to be fully self-sufficient in its ability to produce enough cast billets to support its substantial extrusion volumes and beyond.
The project added a new scrap shredder from SSI Shredding Systems, two sow preheaters from North American Construction Services, two melting furnaces from SECO/Warwick (Figure 4), and three dross presses from Altek. Historically, remelting furnaces in the aluminum industry have had to deal with many different kinds of scrap inputs. Some of the metal would come from inside the plant, while other inputs would be purchased externally.
Adams noted that while the new scrap shredder can shred all the incoming scrap from all sources, it is also equipped with a bypass station. “Purchased shredded scrap can be ‘charged’ onto the conveyor system when it doesn’t need to go through the shredder,” he said. “Shredded scrap can significantly improve the remelt efficiency of our natural gas-fired furnaces, because more surface area on shreds equals faster melt times—and faster melt times mean less natural gas consumption for remelting, and faster cycle times.”
The integration of the new scrap handling capacity and furnace improves the internal logistics of the plant (Figure 5). “I believe that the really outstanding aspect of this expansion is the efficiency that comes from better ‘flow and connection’ between scrap handling in Bay 0 and remelting in Bay 1,” said Adams. “A conveyor system runs out of the shredder, which allows the scrap to be dumped into specific bunkers that face the charge end of the remelting furnaces in Bay 1. So, we can shred scrap and segregate it at the same time using this automated conveyor system.”
Ongoing Success
After more than 80 years, Hydro Cressona is still going strong. These dual investments come at a time when the demand for sustainable, low-carbon aluminum is rising in numerous market segments, including the largest customers of aluminum solutions, namely the automotive and the building and construction industries.
“With these expanded capabilities, Hydro is well-positioned to meet the growing expectations of North American customers who are increasingly prioritizing sustainability in their supply chains,” said Jeff Lehman, who leads Hydro Extrusion North America, which includes the Cressona plant in its 20-site network.
He points out that Cressona boasts a number of quality certifications. Ford Q1 and the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative’s (ASI) Performance Standard V2 are among its most recent achievements. “Our Cressona plant and its talented and dedicated employees are unique in this industry. After more than 80 years, this site is still going strong and is one of Hydro’s best plants in the world,” said Lehman. “We want to make sure their success and the success of their customers continues.”
References
- Lukasak, David, “Do you know when to use the indirect extrusion process?” Shapes, February 3, 2020.
- Hartlieb, Alicia, Martin Hartlieb, and Julio Quintero, “Trends in Secondary Aluminum Casthouses,” Light Metal Age, September 11, 2024.
Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in the December 2024 issue of Light Metal Age. To receive the current issue, please subscribe.