Joseph C. Benedyk

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    Magnesium Alloy Process Developments and Applications

    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 […]

  • Top Ten Aluminum News Stories of 2020

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    Top Ten Aluminum News Stories of 2020

    To say that 2020 has been an interesting year would be a massive understatement. Throughout this wild ride of a year, Light Metal Age (LMA) has been proud to be a valuable resource, providing industry news and technological insights to its readers. On the LMA webpage, we regularly share exclusive featured articles from the print magazine, as […]

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    Resistance Spot Welding of Automotive Aluminum Alloy Sheet

    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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    Friction Stir Welding of Aluminum Alloys

    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 […]

  • Fire Safety of Aluminum its Alloys - non-combustability

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    The Non-Combustibility of Aluminum and Its Alloys

    By Joseph C. Benedyk, Editor. In the October 2016 issue of Light Metal Age, J. Gilbert Kaufman’s book on the fire resistance of aluminum and its alloys was reviewed. The book offered substantial documentation and evaluation of the properties of aluminum and its alloys in various structural product forms upon fire exposure in applications such […]

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    Aluminum Alloy Composition and Method

    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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    Special Applications of Aluminum Anodized Surfaces

    Complimenting our September 2019 International Patent Calendar (which focused mostly on methods of anodizing aluminum), this month’s collection of patents focuses on special applications of anodized aluminum surfaces. The uniqueness of anodized aluminum oxide coatings in terms of their chemical, physical, and mechanical properties has resulted in many innovations in various industrial and scientific fields, […]

  • Corrosion of Aluminium - Christian Vargel

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    Book Review: Corrosion of Aluminium, Second Edition

    Author: Christian Vargel Publisher: Elsevier Science (2020) Review by Joseph C. Benedyk, Editor In a paradoxical sense, corrosion of aluminum should be a non-issue to many users of aluminum and its alloys, as it is normally considered to be protected by a passive oxide coating that resists corrosion under many conditions. As Christian Vargel shows […]

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    Aluminum Remelting and Casthouse Strategies

    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 […]