01 Bauxite mine
Ore, often lateritic, crushed and digested.
Making Aluminium is a chain: feedstock, conversion (Hall–Héroult 1886), forming, heat, finish, install.
Skip a step and the properties chapter is describing a different object.
Process steps
02 Bayer alumina
NaOH digestion, precipitation, calcination to Al2O3.
03 Hall–Héroult
Reduction cells at ~950 °C in molten cryolite; carbon anodes consume.
04 Casting
Rolling ingots, extrusion billets or foundry remelt.
05 Work + temper
Hot/cold roll or extrude, then T4/T5/T6 ageing as specified.
06 Finish
Anodise, paint, clad, or leave mill-finish for cans.
Routes
Primary smelt
Power-hungry; hydro and nuclear regions dominate low-carbon primary.
Remelt scrap
UBC and extrusion scrap take ~5% of primary energy.
Foundry alloys
High-Si castings for engines and e-motor housings.
Clad sheet
Alclad: pure cladding over high-strength core for aero corrosion.
Diagrams
Aluminium process path
Feedstock to installed product.
- Feed — in
- Convert — mill
- Form — shape
- Finish — coat
- Install — out
- Spec — code
- Scrap loop — rec
Aluminium heat & fire
Energy in, class out.
- Heat — in
- Aluminium — mat
- λ / char — out
- Ignition — fire
- Euroclass — class
- Assembly — sys
Hard limits
Melting in fire
Do not treat aluminium beams like steel in a standard fire curve without analysis.
Galvanic
Stainless fasteners can pit aluminium in electrolytes.
Creep / HAZ
Welded 6000-series needs design factors the mill sheet does not show.
Process energy and scrap quality belong in the carbon passport, not in a footnote.
Keep exploring
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