Inner values are also key for aluminium

AluReport: What influence does microstructure have on the performance of aluminium?

RT: The microstructure of aluminium has a significant influence on the material’s performance and determines a number of its properties. Two competing characteristics of metallic materials are, for example, strength and ductility. Due to its low strength, aluminium in its pure form is not suitable for use in construction. It’s only by combining it with other metals, which we call alloying elements, that aluminium becomes technically interesting. Depending on the type, quantity and distribution of the alloying elements, we can configure the microstructure. This includes to increase the material’s strength. The microstructure of aluminium also influence its ability to deform under pressure without breaking.If a metal can withstand significant deformation, we call it a ductile material. And, just to make things trickier for us engineers, casting, rolling and heat treatment all have a significant influence on microstructure, as does downstream processing by our customers. In summary, the performance profile of aluminium products is determined by their chemical composition and the thermomechanical methods used in their production. In effect, it’s about what’s within the aluminium.

AluReport: That sounds very complex. How do you manage to maintain an overview of the 5,000 different products at AMAG, so that your customers ultimately get  the quality they need?

RT: You’ve hit the nail on the head! It’s not easy - it requires an unbelievable amount of knowledge. On the one hand, you need knowledge of the materials themselves, and on the other hand, you need an in-depth understanding of the process engineering involved in producing and processing aluminium.The real skill lies in combining these two worlds in theoretical and practical respects before, ultimately, applying this knowledge for all aluminium alloy families (1xxx to 8xxx). This doesn’t happen overnight: it takes decades of work and also requires effective cooperations with excellent research partners. We have to conduct extensive research into chemical and physical interrelations, especially for novel alloy systems. This issue features a series of articles on microstructure analysis. The first outlines how we’re working with Montanuniversität Leoben (MUL) to take the next steps forward in aluminium research and prepare the science needed to meet our customer’s wide-ranging requirements.

When it comes to basic research, AMAG works a number of prestigious universities (including TU Vienna, TU Graz, JKU Linz, ETH Zürich and MPIE Düsseldorf). We’re pursuing a shared goal: to research complex physical interrelations in metals in order to understand how we can create aluminium products that fulfill requirement profiles.

AluReport: Where does the challenge lie in microstructure analysis?

RT: The challenge starts with drawing up a suitable testing plan and taking samples in the industrial context. It requires an excellent understanding of the physical interrelations in metals, so that we can define exactly what we want to visualize through the microstructure analysis. The next step towards this objective is preparing samples properly. Using the wrong technique can distort the material’s structure. This reduces the accuracy of our analysis and, in the worst case scenario, could cause the results to be misinterpreted. The second article in this series, (“To Si or not to Si: that is the question”) provides a valuable insight into this aspect. Once we’ve prepared the sample for analysis, it’s important to use a suitable analysis technique with the right resolution.We need state-of-the-art, high-resolution imaging techniques to identify structures at the microscopic and atomic level (see “Live and in color”). Identifying and characterizing specific structural elements requires a deep understanding of the interactions between material composition, processing conditions and the resulting microstructures. Microstructure analysis has an increasingly important role to play, especially in relation to the development of aluminium alloys containing a high proportion of recycled material.AMAG plans to enhance its analysis infrastructure in the coming year by procuring a new, high-end scanning electron microscope, thereby keeping its research activities at the cutting edge. We’re upgrading even further!

AluReport: Some people might think that this field of research seems very scientific for an industrial enterprise. Why not leave this task to universities universities?

RT:  As a premium supplier of specialist aluminium products, this never crosses our minds!Our products are more difficult to manufacture than standard products and therefore, as I’ve already mentioned, require a high degree of expertise in materials and manufacturing. We have very high concentration of expertise, our teams cover an array of R&D fields and, together with our network of research partners, we’re ideally equipped for the future. Our experience also shows that joint research projects are only successful when external and internal researchers communicate on an equal footing. High internal expertise is a crucial success factor in research involving material modeling. We have to validate and calibrate simulation models on an ongoing basis to ensure optimal forecasting accuracy.This is the only way to exploit the full potential of simulations and save valuable resources that would otherwise have been needed for experiments.

At this point, I’d like to mention that AMAG recently won the Green Business Data Award in recognition of our AMAG BigData for Predictive Quality project. As you can see, not only do we know about materials engineering, we can also use intelligent manufacturing approaches to keep our product quality at the highest level.

AluReport: Finally, we’re still interested in finding out how you respond to increasing customer requirements in relation to sustainable aluminium products?

RT: Achieving maximum performance used to be the main focus of materials development.Today, this is taken as standard. Products that contain a higher proportion of recycled materials and/or have a low carbon footprint now offer additional benefits. AMAG is responding to these requirements with specific research focuses. One example is our work on the Science of Recycling Alloys (SORA). In this field, AMAG is building on its extensive recycling expertise to increase the proportion of recycled material in existing products and develop new products made using even more recycled material (see “Sustainable aluminium production”). Another example is the ongoing development work in relation to AMAG CrossAlloys®. It involves chemically combining different alloy classes to produce an alloy with an entirely new performance profile (see “Is there room for any more?”). This makes it possible to produce high-strength, lightweight materials that also have sufficient ductility to withstand cold forming. At this point, I think it’s important to emphasize that producing materials that deliver maximum performance and also contain the highest possible quantity of recycled material is an immense challenge. Successfully developing sustainable products requires an intensive dialogue between customers and us as a materials supplier. Given our extensive recycling and materials expertise, we’re definitely an ideal partner for the future!