Helge Jansen, Senior Vice President Hydro R&D, has great experience of the aluminium industry. He has worked in research and development, production, sales and marketing. Since 2007 he has been in charge of R&D for Hydro’s downstream activities with a staff of 260 throughout the whole organisation both nationally and internationally.
R&D at Hydro is run on a wide range of fronts from quality and alloys to the development and improvement of productivity and processes. Whatever faspect of the business is concerned, this involves close cooperation and dialogue with customers and the market in order to provide solutions where aluminium meets all the demands made of it. In this work we benefit greatly from the pool of skills and experience available within the different branches of Hydro’s business from metal production to extruded and rolled products. Cooperation that can result in joint development projects with common objectives laterally throughout the organisation.
Focusing on the environment and climate
Apart from product-oriented development projects, we work extensively today with objectives that affect the environment and the climate. Partly by reducing energy consumption and process emissions internally, partly by helping to create products where aluminium can make a contribution to minimising the consumption of energy and resources which includes recycling. Today our R&D focuses on three main areas – the transport sector, the construction industry and renewable energy sources like solar, wind and wave power. All these areas provide perfect applications for aluminium but it is essential that development work takes place in close consultation with our customers.
Vehicles & Construction
Today for example we work with the automotive industry on several fronts. Aluminium extrusions have been use for many years in the leading companies’ prestige models. By developing and improving extrusion tolerances and thereby adapting them to the highly automated production lines, we facilitate the use of extrusions in models in the standard ranges. The development work involves close interplay throughout the whole manufacturing process – optimizing alloys, tools, extrusion, heat treatment and hardening, and stretching. On the construction side, there are more product-related projects that include continuing the development of façades with integrated solar energy supplies and façades reinforced against things like natural disasters and terrorism. For sources of renewable energy, Hydro currently runs research projects for wind, wave and tide power on top of those for the prioritized solar sector. Aluminium can also play a decisive role here for environment- and climate-friendly products.
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Recycling important field of research
How to exploit scrap metal is a challenge so recycling is another important field of research. In keeping with the fact that the whole approach to recycling is improving, the demands for efficient processing increase. Recycled metal can contain trace metals like nickel, vanadium, copper or lead that affect the metal’s properties. Today there are three main approaches:
- Separating and sorting
- Cleaning after smelting – today there are no obviously efficient methods here
- Additives when casting that counteract any impurities
Another strategy is to think of the lifecycle perspective as early as possible in the design stage and quite simply not mix or join the materials in a way that complicates or prevents the recycling process. We are also working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, in a recycling development project. MIT has cuttingedge skills in modelling – How can we mix the scrap metals for optimal results in our foundry? and How do market trends affect the availability of scrap metal? It is estimated that there are 700 million tons of aluminium scrap in the world today – where and how do we exploit them in the best way?
Exchanging knowledge
Another important side of our business is building networks and the transfer of knowledge and experience with educational establishments around the world. The aim is both the support of long-term basic teaching and research as well as the practical exchange of experience. Here we work both nationally and internationally and apart from Norwegian colleges and universities we have continual contact today with MIT, universities and colleges in Japan and India as well as an R&D project in Qatar.
Future projects
Commissioned by the executive management’s Central Strategic Projects we work today with a series of long-term projects:
- replacing copper with aluminium in a series of strategic applications
- modelling/simulating manufacturing processes
- surface treatment with nanotechnology (zero emission, improved corrosion resistance
- renewable sources of energy in, for example, the marine sector
- battery technology (improved storage capacity)
Here there is every reason to be optimistic about exciting results in the future.
A revolution
For obvious reasons, R&D is characterized more by continual incremental improvements rather than major step changes. But small changes can also lead to significant results. For example an extrusion press is twice as productive today as it was in the eighties. And experts expect a further 50% improvement by 2020! However a real step change can be said to be the development of new casting technology that has taken place on the metal side and which is under evaluation. This promises results in the form of better bolt utilisation and faster production for extrusion. A real revolution!
Otherwise we are thinking every day about aluminium as a design and development material – not least extrusions – but from a slightly different angle than before. Pure conversion, that is to say replacing for example steel with aluminium, is replaced by the starting point of how do we utilise aluminium’s positive characteristics best in a certain product? A big difference but it also shows that aluminium on its own merits has taken a leading position in the design landscape!
