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 […]
International Patents
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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 […]
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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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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, […]
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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 […]
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Experienced welders will tell you that, compared to welding steel, welding aluminum and its alloys is not difficult but different. Steel, being one of the common construction materials, most welders and myself included started by learning how to weld steel. As aluminum has especially gained market share in transportation, welding aluminum is challenged in various […]
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The quest for higher strength materials, especially in transportation markets, seems to be never ending. The aluminum industry is meeting the demand with new alloys and heat treatments aimed at optimizing properties made of age hardening aluminum. Processing age hardening aluminum alloys to meet high strength levels in various product forms requires special heat treatment, […]
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US10587020 — BATTERY PACK AND ENCAPSULATED INTERCONNECTION FOR A BATTERY PACK — Samsung SDI Co., Ltd. (Korea) — A battery pack includes a first battery module level and a second battery module level. The first battery module level includes: a first heat exchanger including a cooling tube that defines a cooling area; a first secondary […]