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 […]
international patents
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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: Although the Aluminum Association has certified hundreds of international aluminum alloys in each of the wrought and cast categories, aluminum metallurgists keep adding new recipes to meet the challenges required in their products, which span a range of applications—transportation, B&C, packaging, and various industrial and consumer products. The focused patent search presented hereafter reviews […]
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The aluminum casthouse is where aluminum wrought processing and shape casting begins, and there are many casthouse functions to consider. Scrap sorting, decoating of organic coatings on scrap, remelting, alloying, melt purification by refining and degassing, grain refining, melt transfer to casting station, casting by direct chill or other means, ingot heat treatment, and dross […]
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Experienced welders will tell you that, compared to welding steel, welding aluminum and its alloys is not difficult but different. Steel, being one of the common construction materials, most welders and myself included started by learning how to weld steel. As aluminum has especially gained market share in transportation, welding aluminum is challenged in various […]
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Editor’s Note: Various aspects of aluminum casthouse technology appear in almost every issue of Light Metal Age, no doubt because it is the first step and an important link in the wrought aluminum processing chain required for subsequent downstream processing and production of quality product. With no exception, the international patent survey presented here focuses […]
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Editor’s Note: Unlike aluminum’s sustainable advantage in recycling, primary aluminum production (which uses carbon anodes in the Hall-Héroult process), continues to be energy intensive and a greenhouse gas (GHG) producer. Ignoring the effect of CO2 generation in the coal/hydrocarbon power equation, the use of carbonaceous anodes in the smelting process generates GHGs as carbon is […]
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US10486821 — JET ENGINE ANTI-ICING AND NOISE-ATTENUATING AIR INLETS — The Boeing Company (USA) — An embodiment of a jet engine air inlet providing anti-icing, and optionally, engine noise reduction, includes a rigid frame defining a gridwork of contiguous cells. A cap skin has an outer surface sealingly attached to an inner surface of the […]
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Editor’s Note: In coil coating of aluminum sheet, applied by roll coating or other means, the coated product is subsequently subjected to a short thermal, ultraviolet, and/or electromagnetic curing cycle for drying and curing of the coating. Coil coating of aluminum alloy sheet is forever evolving in terms of pretreatment and top coating compositions, especially […]