Editor’s Note: Constantly changing, constantly innovating, the transportation industry relies on aluminum and every other materials group in manufacturing their products, which today move us speedily across land, sea, air, and even into space itself. All told, in 2021, transportation represented the biggest global aluminum market share with some 32% of all primary or secondary […]
Joseph C. Benedyk
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Editor’s Note: With ET ’22 happening (May 3-5, 2022), it was appropriate to focus on aluminum extrusion for the International Patent Calendar for our April issue. The extrusion patents selected for this issue have been recently issued within the past 18 months and cover invented technologies in every business category that aluminum extruders serve, i.e., […]
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Editor’s Note: The focus of this issue’s patent survey is a comparison of primary aluminum invention patents granted in both the U.S. and China in just the past year. In both countries, the issued invention patents are enforceable over a 20-year term. At the same time, the contrast in the present state of primary aluminum […]
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Roll-forming is a manufacturing process that is typically used to manufacture components such as construction panels, structural beams, garage doors, decking, and/or any other component having a formed profile. A roll-forming production process ordinarily operates at room temperature and may be implemented by using a roll-forming machine having work rolls in sequence that receive and […]
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As the recently granted U.S. patents presented here indicate, the additive manufacturing (AM) of aluminum and other light metals is evolving rapidly from what was just two decades ago mainly a prototyping process to a production process that involves automotive, aerospace, medical, and various domestic product industries. In my LMA article from February 2018 on AM […]
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Editors Note: Aluminum recycling into ingots and shape castings rates as one of the most successful “green” technologies in the world. The data gathered by the Aluminum Association and the International Aluminum Institute (IAI) are impressive, noting that 90-95% less energy is used in recycling aluminum than in primary production from ore and some 75% […]
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Editor’s Note: Much has changed in the automotive world since the last time that Light Metal Age spotlighted patents focused on the role of aluminum in electric vehicles (EVs). More and more automakers and suppliers are devoting their intellectual and financial resources toward EV production. As a result, automakers are displacing or at least minimizing […]
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Editor’s Note: As a manufacturing process where metal is hot or cold pressed under great pressures in the solid state to produce three dimensional parts, forging has long been associated with high quality wrought aluminum products. The recent patents below cover aluminum forgings used throughout the transportation industry, from aerospace to automotive to bicycles, as […]
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Editor’s Note: As many Light Metal Age articles and items have noted, the friction stir welding (FSW) process, which joins aluminum components in the solid state, has been applied throughout the world in various industries that produce products for transportation, B&C, and industrial and consumer sectors. The November 2020 selection of patents covered a wide […]