The heat treatment of aluminum ingots is the heart of our production and makes alimex products unique. In our annealing hall, we give the aluminum material special properties.

Heat treatment - essential for the most stress-free aluminum possible

In October 2017, we put one of the largest annealing furnaces in Europe into operation at our headquarters in Willich. This optimizes heat treatment - because up to 600 tonnes of aluminium can be treated in a single production process. As the furnace is mobile, it can be moved on rails so that the new annealing charge can be packed at one annealing station while the annealing process is taking place at the other annealing station. By annealing at particularly sophisticated parameters, we remove stresses from the aluminum and prepare it for the subsequent production process. The lowest possible stress is essential in the further processing of aluminum, as this guarantees the dimensional stability of the aluminum products.
“With aluminum, we are dealing with a very sensitive metal. This makes heat treatment complex. Temperature fluctuations of just 10 degrees Celsius can lead to changes in the structure,” explains José Ceballos, Head of Research & Development. alimex has been researching this technology for over 30 years and has built up unique operational knowledge. We were able to incorporate this knowledge into the engineering of the new annealing furnace.

This allows us to adapt precisely to the nature of the base material and the desired properties for the end material and to define the heat treatment process accordingly.

Its special material properties make our aluminum interesting for many different industries and high-tech applications. For example, our dimensionally stable material ACP 5080 (AlMg4.5Mn / EN AW 5083) was used to manufacture parabolic mirrors for space observation in the Atacama Desert. Thanks to their extraordinary dimensional stability, these mirrors can withstand temperature fluctuations of up to 40 degrees Celsius. alimex aluminum is also used in high-precision components for vacuum chambers, which have to meet the highest demands in terms of dimensional accuracy and dimensional stability - here, too, it is extremely important to make the material as stress-relieved as possible in the annealing process.

Do you have any questions about our work or are you interested in our products? Please feel free to contact us!