A global automotive supplier recently announced an expansion of its operations at its Kamtek facility in Birmingham, Alabama.
Magna International reported that its new facility will feature a manufacturing process–high-pressure aluminum casting–that further enables the supplier to provide vehicle lightweighting and part-reduction solutions for customers. The new capabilities improve upon traditional steel multi-piece welded assemblies, which can take upwards of 12 stampings to produce one structural component. High-pressure aluminum casting allows production of full structures in one piece, reducing vehicle mass without compromising performance, structural integrity or safety.
Magna invested approximately $60 million to add the 150,000-square-foot facility. The Kamtek facility employs approximately 850 people and produces structural components for various customers including Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Nissan. The new facility will initially produce lightweight aluminum front shock towers for a major global automaker, with additional customers and programs expected in the future. At full capacity, the expansion has the potential to generate more than 100 jobs.
Dutch aluminum producer Constellium NV, formerly Alcan, explores technological and manufacturing shifts in the electric vehicle industry as part of its rapidly forming network in North America.
“For vehicles to carry electric batteries,” says CEO Jean-Mark Germain, “they will be designed with aluminum structures to hold them. And those structures must do more than traditional metal body structures. They must provide thermal transfer capabilities to keep the battery cool or keep it warm in cold weather. So the structure actually becomes part of the power source.”
Read more here, “EV Bodies: ‘Part of the power source'”, about plans for Constellium’s new Georgia plant to supply engineered aluminum body structures to several automakers in the Southeast.
In a throwback to the 1960s, Volkswagen has announced plans to bring back a version of their iconic micro bus retrofitted as an I.D. electric van. In 2022, the I.D. Buzz concept vehicle will go into production, looking a bit like the ’60s vehicle favored by hippies and surfers, it will be built off of the same platform as the I.D. electric car, a four-door compact vehicle. The last time a VW van was on the market was in 2003.
A global automotive corporation’s American-based bearing division placed an order for a mesh belt furnace system for heat treating thrust races, retainer/cages, and washers. The new, CQI-9 compliant production line features built-in flexibility that allows for both neutral hardening and carburizing. Included with the system are an atmosphere controlled hardening furnace, salt quench, two-stage post-quench washing system, salt reclamation unit, temper furnace salt holding tank, and Level 2 SCADA system. The electrically heated system utilizes loading combinations on its belt to meet production requirements while achieving the customer’s required low residence times for the system’s hardener and quench.
Can-Eng Furnaces’ continuous mesh belt heat treatment systems are capable of treating three separate part types, multiple heat treating processes, unique temperature operating ranges, and diverse residence times for each piece of equipment
Sujit Sanyal, Chief Executive Officer, ArcelorMittal Long Products Canada, Caroline St-Hilaire, Mayor of Longueuil, and Guy Gaudette, Regional Representative for Syndicat des Métallos, cut the official ribbon at the June 7 inauguration event in Longueuil.
ArcelorMittal Long Products Canada, a part of ArcelorMittal, the world’s leading integrated steel and mining company, recently completed an 18-month long installation of a new finishing line at its bar mill in Longueuil, Québec. The $27 million (CAD) project is forecast to boost the facility’s annual rolling capacity from 400,000 to 500,000 metric tonnes per year; in addition, it will be able to make new value-added steel products available to local and international markets.
“Our new finishing line has been built to better respond to the needs of our clients and support the company’s development over the next few years. The project is part of our growth strategy to maximize the profitability of our steel,” said Sujit Sanyal, President and CEO, ArcelorMittal Long Products Canada. “We are reaffirming our leadership in the steel and mining industry in North America as an integrated company: from mining to steel to customers.”
The Longueuil bar mill converts steel billets cast from recycled scrap iron and iron ore extracted on Québec’s North Shore into special grade and merchant bars, reinforcing steel (rebar), and other semi-finished products for customers in North America and Mexico. The bar mill is the world’s largest supplier of steel used by the world’s automotive manufacturers in leaf springs for light and heavy trucks. The new finishing line will secure additional outlets for billets from the two ArcelorMittal Montreal steelworks in Contrecoeur and will increase the bar mill’s capacity by 100,000 tonnes per year.
Since 2008, ArcelorMittal Montreal has undergone several upgrades and expansions in an effort to improve the mill’s performance and reduce energy consumption and greenhouse emissions, including the installation of a new reheat furnace in 2013. In operation since 1974, the Longueuil plant is one of the cornerstones of the company’s rolling capacity expansion plan to be executed between now and 2020.
Since it obtained its license from heat treating and manufacturing services company Nitrex, in Canada, heat treatment specialist P.H. Heat Treatment [of Germiston, South Africa] provides the automotive industry with controlled nitriding and ferritic nitrocarburizing processes for automotive components, which form part of the Nitreg® range.
Nitinol’s shape memory and superelastic properties allow it to be used in a wide range of applications in the aerospace, medical, consumer technology, telecommunications, and automotive industries. In particular, heat treatment and thermomechanical processes can change the parent shape of Nitinol wire, making it indispensable for use in medical devices. Read more: Using Heat Treatment and Thermal Shape Memory to Tailor Nitinol to Your Application by AZO Materials
A European automotive components supplier has contracted for a turnkey nitriding system which will nitride a variety of H11 and H13 aluminum extrusion dies for manufacturing automotive structural components supplied to most major vehicle manufacturers.
The project involves the replacement of an old gas nitriding furnace with a modern system that will improve gas and energy consumption and meet environmental objectives. Other priorities for the customer were conservation of resources, environmental compliance, and noise reduction. Entirely custom and tested recipes based on potential-controlled Nitreg® technology were developed by Nitrex Metal Inc., of St. Laurent, Quebec, for the application, enabling consistent uniformity and repeatability of results. In contrast to the previous nitrider, the system is programmed to work with a low consumption of gasses and electricity. Auxiliary hardware such as the effluent neutralizer helps comply with environmental regulations, while a silencer fitted on the cooling blower controls noise exposure for better working conditions.
Press-hardened boron steel is an ultra high-strength steel used across a variety of industries, with a particularly important application in the automotive industry. A large proportion of car manufacturers use boron steel for structural components and anti-intrusion systems in automobiles, as it provides high strength and weight-saving potential, allowing for stronger yet lighter cars, with increased passenger safety.
