Overview

Since its foundation, AMAG has made impressive progress in its primary aluminium activities. The company was founded as a smelting plant and began producing primary aluminium in 1939. As the years went by, AMAG adjusted its strategy in response to changing market conditions. In the 1980s, the state-owned company was restructured as it was no longer efficient to operate the smelter on site. In the course of this restructuring, the decision was taken to transform AMAG into an international aluminium corporation, shifting its focus away from primary aluminium production and towards metal processing.

Energy transition
Decentralized electrification of infrastructure has a decisive role to play in our society’s pursuit of climate neutrality. Many electrical technologies are expierence a real boom, from the integration of solar panels and battery energy storage systems in residential construction projects to charging infrastructure and batteries in e-mobility. All of these applications have a key component in common: cost-efficient electrical conductors with low electrical resistance and excellent processing properties. These conductors are often referred to as bus bars.

In the first article on recycled cast alloys for aluminium wheels, published back in AluReport 2/2022, we described in detail how aluminium is one of the most significant materials for durable and sustainable components in automotive construction.

In 2008, the aviation industry faced existential challenges as the financial crisis began to take hold. From one day to the next, the optimism fueled by the development of revolutionary new concepts like the Airbus A380 and Boeing’s Dreamliners quite simply disappeared. It wasn’t long before the impacts on supply chains became apparent. OEMs responded to cancellations from airlines by reducing and postponing their aircraft construction plans.

Aluminum is a cornerstone of modern engineering, offering unmatched lightweight properties, high recyclability, and versatility across industries.

First things first: AMAG has delivered on its promises in recent years. By making large-scale investments - from expanding its recycling center and foundry to commissioning new hot and cold rolling mills and a continuous heat-treatment furnace with a passivation system to opening the Center for Material Innovation (CMI) - it has become a full-range supplier to the automotive industry. As a result, AMAG has established itself as a supplier for the automotive and transportation industry.

Heat exchangers can be found in wide-ranging situations in which the transfer of thermal energy plays a decisive role. The manufacture of heat exchangers predominantly relies on aluminium brazing materials. These are advanced, high-quality, multi-layered composites made from a core alloy clad on one or both sides with an AlSi brazing alloy. AMAG has produced these composites for over 40 years using a sophisticated roll cladding technology. This solid-state pressure welding process produces a tight metallurgical bond between the brazing solder and the core bars, which facilitates outstanding soldering results in downstream processing of the material.

In the modern business world, precise and consistent data lays the foundation for sound decisions and successful strategies. It plays a key role in controlling, because the indicators calculated in this context are vital for managing and evaluating a company’s performance. But what happens when the figures for a given indicator vary in different reports, despite being based on the same data? Confusion, inefficient processes and, in the worst case scenario, wrong decisions. AMAG’s Controlling department engaged with the topic of efficient data management at an early stage. In 2012, it introduced LucaNet: a system that facilitates centralized access to indicators.

As demand for high-quality and precision processed rolled aluminium products steadily expands, the importance of advanced manufacturing technologies is also rising.

First things first: aluminium has a silvery color and is only green once painted or anodized. This fact is important to bear in mind when scrutinizing claims of green aluminium. Ultimately, only on closer inspection does it become clear wether an assertion is just that, i.e. colored green, or wether the statement is comprehensively technically correct.

Based on the Paris Climate Agreement in December 2015, international climate policy aims to reduce emissions in order to limit the increase in global temperatures to a maximum of 2°C by the middle of the century. This aim underpinned the EU’s decision to set a target of achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Adopted in 2021, the European Climate Law enshrined these emission reduction targets in law and set the overall direction of travel.

Aluminium can be made “greener” through recycling, energy efficiency, durability and systematic application of lightweight design concepts