Editors Note: Aluminum recycling into ingots and shape castings rates as one of the most successful “green” technologies in the world. The data gathered by the Aluminum Association and the International Aluminum Institute (IAI) are impressive, noting that 90-95% less energy is used in recycling aluminum than in primary production from ore and some 75% […]
International Patents
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Editor’s Note: Much has changed in the automotive world since the last time that Light Metal Age spotlighted patents focused on the role of aluminum in electric vehicles (EVs). More and more automakers and suppliers are devoting their intellectual and financial resources toward EV production. As a result, automakers are displacing or at least minimizing […]
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Editor’s Note: As a manufacturing process where metal is hot or cold pressed under great pressures in the solid state to produce three dimensional parts, forging has long been associated with high quality wrought aluminum products. The recent patents below cover aluminum forgings used throughout the transportation industry, from aerospace to automotive to bicycles, as […]
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Editor’s Note: As many Light Metal Age articles and items have noted, the friction stir welding (FSW) process, which joins aluminum components in the solid state, has been applied throughout the world in various industries that produce products for transportation, B&C, and industrial and consumer sectors. The November 2020 selection of patents covered a wide […]
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Editor’s Note: On August 3rd, 1888, Austrian chemist Karl Josef Bayer working in Saint Petersburg, Russia was granted German patent 43977 for his invention involving a process for the production of aluminum hydroxide. At the time, his invention was used by the textile industry that made use of aluminum hydroxide as a dye fixative. Other […]
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Editor’s Note: Although the focused patent surveys in Light Metal Age have generally covered select aluminum technologies, magnesium alloy technology has generally been sidelined. Nevertheless, magnesium is a major alloying master alloy in aluminum casthouse production and critical to the reduction of light metals, such as titanium and beryllium. Therefore, this patent survey aims to […]
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Resistance spot welding (RSW), a technology that’s at least 100 years old, has been used by the automotive industry almost exclusively for joining steel sheet without using filler material or flux. The process utilizes shaped copper alloy electrodes, typically water cooled, to apply heat and pressure to pass electric current through stacked up sheets to […]
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Editor’s Note: As many articles have appeared in Light Metal Age (both in the magazine and online) describing and following the friction stir welding (FSW) process, especially its application in joining aluminum alloys in various forms and tempers, readers should be familiar with its advantages. In the FSW process, aluminum components are joined in the solid […]