Already a major and full-service aluminum extrusion company offering a range of beautiful finishes, and capable of complex fabrication, we have added the ability to transform scrap aluminum into pure, new, and ready to use aluminum billet.
Introducing ABC’s Smelter / Casting House
Overview
So many Benefits, including to the Environment
ABC is excited to announce the availability and operation of its state-of-the-art casting house, also known in the industry as a smelter or foundry.
In brief, its task is to transform raw material, the majority of which is scrap for recycling, with a small amount of virgin aluminum, to which chemicals such as magnesium are added, into pure log-shaped aluminum billet ready for the extrusion process.
Alloy specifications of 6061, 6063 and 6005
The smelter operates on a batch by batch process, and delivers 2500 pounds of aluminum per hour. When the second furnace and related equipment is added, this quantity is set to more than double. Additional alloys are planned.
Coming online in January 2021, it is in operation 24 hours every day of the year, and is manned by our extremely well trained team of specialists.
Quality and Safety
Priorities are attention to quality and safety.
This casting house represents the completion of yet another major turnkey project in ABC’s history and catalog of exponential growth, and is a substantial investment that will pay dividends in at least three main ways:
- Our aluminum factory will be 50% self-sufficient, and when a second furnace is added (the infrastructure is built in for this) this will rise to 100%.
- Scrap will be sourced from across the Americas, thus replacing dirty, inefficient and polluting smelters, especially in South America.
- And, perhaps the greatest benefit of all are the positive wins for the environment:
- From the outset, every detailed specification, and no expense-spared attention, has been built in.
- As an example, a large-scale, cutting-edge scrubbing plant removes all by-product noxious gasses via a latest technology multi-stage cleaning process, resulting in an unseen, odorless exhaust that is very close to being 100% pure air, surpassing the most stringent international regulations.
- Transportation of billet from overseas and overland is minimized, with just a relatively short and direct link between the local port of Ensenada and the plant.
- Many smelters and factories that heavily pollute (many are old and located adjacent to dense populations) are eliminated.
- Just a mile from ABC’s press manufacturing plants, transfer is via a road that ABC commissioned and had built, that has no proximity to residential areas.
- Land at the top of a hill above our factory was especially chosen, to provide maximum air flow, and complete separation from housing areas; again, wholly with the environment and minimal intrusion in mind.
Foundry
Efficiency, Versatility and Quality
In planning the smelter construction and layout, the design specifications have all been about maximum efficiency and versatility in operation. As client orders flow in, billet in the quantities and alloys needed are produced.
Committed to quality at the heart of everything we do. The quality of our aluminum billet is monitored, measured and carefully controlled at every process-step. As aluminum distributors, we ensure that in the extrusion, fabrication, and finishing processes, all products shipping to the customer are of the utmost fine quality, from billet to box.
Operation
ABC’s Smelter is an Industry Leader
Our smelting process in greater detail
At ABC Aluminum, we commit to providing you with accurately extruded and finished beautiful products of the highest quality and integrity, that will stand the test of time. To accomplish this level of precision, the integrity of the billet from which the products and shapes are extruded, is essential.
The smelter’s design allows our aluminum company to have total control and scrutiny of the transformation process. Our attention to detail and quality throughout the smelting and casting process, results in contaminant levels in the billet being below 0.5%. By industry standards, this is an impressive achievement.
For your interest, here are the steps involved in the reclamation and billet formation process:
Firstly, the input raw materials are selected and classified. These will predominantly be scrap, both from ABC, and from many others who ship their scrap that we have bought from them. However, perhaps surprisingly, there is a percentage, usually between 12 and 15%, of virgin aluminum, that will be included in the mix.
This combination is loaded into the furnace and melted.
From the molten metal, contaminants such as oxides, paint, dust or soil are removed. This step is called slagging, and the removed material, of course, is the slag.
Chemicals such as magnesium are added, in quantities specified by the alloy ‘recipe’.
At this stage, the metal is checked to ensure it meets specific parameters of the alloy needed from the batch. At present, ABC produces three popular alloys, aluminum billet 6061, 6063, and 6005.
– Grain refining; Grain refinement allows for the strengthening of the aluminum so that the metal has better mechanical properties. The aluminum will have an enhanced surface finish, increased tear resistance, and have a better response to thermal resistance. The aluminum also will have better feed capabilities. Grain refiners added include titanium and boron.This achieves a standardization of the grain size.
– Degassing; This step is important to eliminate any hydrogen trapped in the aluminum, to avoid porosity in the final billet. Introducing inert gasses such as argon or nitrogen into the molten metal can be used to remove hydrogen. As inert gas bubbles move up through the molten aluminum, hydrogen diffuses into the inert gas bubbles and essentially disappears.
– Aluminum filtering: metallic and non-metallic ‘inclusions’ are checked for, and removed.
The resulting metal is now ready for the Casting Process; this is the formation of aluminum billet in a cylindrical log shape via a continuous casting process referred to in the industry as HDC.
Billet is now formed. Next, it moves through a saw machine to be cut to standard lengths, suitable for loading onto our presses. The billet is marked with an identification for traceability.
The final stage is Homogenization. This consists of a heating and cooling process in an abrupt way, modifying the microstructure of the billet, ensuring compliance with the mechanical properties required for optimum extrudability.
Packaging and shipping.
ABC is today among the leaders in the industry, and has grown through leadership and an ethos of adapting and meeting our customer’s needs. By being a full-service provider of integrity and quality, we always strive to deliver all this as competitively priced as possible.
With lines having a capacity of extruding in excess of 5,000,000 pounds of aluminum per day, our processing capabilities are recognized worldwide. Over 90% of our extrusion services production is shipped to the U.S. and Canada, of which 5% delivered to Australia.
Machinery
Essential equipment to transform scrap into billet aluminum
ABC reviewed many options, but ultimately chose the cutting-edge Italian foundry design by Italy-based Presezzi. This incorporates specialized machinery and equipment at every stage of the transformation process, capable of speed and accuracy.
Control systems incorporate the very best designs and technology, to ensure efficiency and precision in operation. For other specialized components, ABC looked to leaders in their field.
Similarly, with regard to the plant’s construction; and of equal importance, in-depth operational and safety training for the hand-picked team of operatives. Management comes from the most experienced in the sector.
The research time taken, energy and investment, has had a key objective; that of producing billet of the highest quality possible, with as close-to-zero impact on the environment as is scientifically achievable, all designed to ensure that every project we undertake for our customers, is also of the highest quality achievable.
Here is a summary of the key industrial components involved in the smelting and casting process:
The research time taken, energy and investment, has had a key objective; that of producing billet of the highest quality possible, with as close-to-zero impact on the environment as is scientifically achievable, all designed to ensure that every project we undertake for our customers, is also of the highest quality achievable.
Here is a summary of the key industrial components involved in the smelting and casting process:
- Automatic furnace charging and slagging machines (Dross Press)
- Aluminum Melter Furnace (Oxyfuel)
- Maintainer Furnace
- Magnetic stirring (Stirrer)
- Refiner
- Homogenizing Oven
- Externally located outside of the main foundry operations, but fully integrated, is a large scale plant of sophisticated design, to scrub all waste and exhaust gasses in multiple stages.
Quality
Committed to quality control in the aluminum industry
Quality control throughout the processing of each batch is conducted with care and precision; essential to achieving the absolute best results available in the aluminum extrusion industry, anywhere in the world. In addition, maintaining cleanliness throughout the facility, and of each piece of equipment is a carefully managed priority.
- Homogenization (intermetallics and % phase chance)
- Degassing (hydrogen concentration)
- Spectrometry (chemical composition)
- Visual surface finish
- Validation of straightness and diameter to meet Standard – ASTM 221
- Verification using ultrasound to ensure there are no inclusions, porosities or cracks
- Verification of the microstructure via metallographic tests
Certifications
Quality and Safety guaranteed
ABC’s commitment to customers and to every employee in the ABC family, and as a prominent member of the aluminum industry, is to set an example in the delivery of a high quality level of service, of careful attention at every stage of our manufacturing process, and extrusion services, and at all times being aware of, and emphasizing, safety in everything we do.
ISO 9000-1
Our aluminum profile factory is fully certified in compliance with the most recent quality control and quality management standards established by the International Organization for Standardization. Safety also.
Our goal is to be the number one aluminum manufacturer and supplier of beautiful anodized aluminum and powder coat finishes, with endless capabilities in fabrication including complex CNC machining; even the use of robots in welding, all designed to achieve maximum efficiency in time and cost.
