Aluminium grain refiner specialist MQP and the UK’s top metals research centre have extended their longstanding partnership to take grain refinement to the next level.
MQP and Brunel Centre for Advanced Solidification Technology (BCAST) at Brunel University of London are going one step further in exploring even more efficient, but also superclean, grain refiners as they renew their “science-meets-industry” research partnership for another year.
MQP and BCAST have been working together for five years to unlock the technology to increase grain refiner efficiency and consistently improve melt quality, their first joint breakthrough being the super-efficient Optifine 5:1 125, which brings down addition rates by 85%.
The collaboration between MQP and BCAST got into full swing after a decade’s research into the industry-wide problem of inconsistency of aluminium quality on a global scale, resulting in huge waste and substandard products across manufacturing.
The partnership will now continue for another year, focusing on research that will convert into products that improve melt quality and bring down waste and carbon emissions, as well as reduce plants’ overall manufacturing costs.
MQP chairman John Courtenay said: “Our partnership began when we realised BCAST had been studying the Al3Ti layer at the atomic level using High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM) to solve the industry-wide problem of inconsistency of aluminium quality, resulting in huge waste and substandard products across manufacturing.
“This paved the way for us to work alongside them on science-meets-industry research and we’ve been making breakthroughs ever since.
“The next thing for our partnership is to look at further improving grain refinement for high surface ‘mirror-like’ quality applications in sectors including aerospace and the luxury car market.”
Grain refinement during the casting of engineering alloys is common practice in the metal casting industry, providing casthouses with a fine and equiaxed grain structure and significantly reduced casting defects for improved engineering performance.
High efficiency grain refiners are important for preventing common defects, such as pin holes in thin sheet and foil for food and medical packaging applica¬tions, black-line defects in litho plate, and tears in beverage cans.
It is also important for ensuring excellent surface quality and the extrudability of billet for automotive extrusions, such as trims and rails on SUVs and high gloss surfaces for luxury and sports cars.
Get in touch if you want to know more about how MQP can help your casthouse operations.