Recent Progress in the Field of Light Alloys

Abstract

The present lecture is intended to give a general idea of the technical and scientific progress made in recent years in the field of aluminium and its alloys.
In the first section, the progress in the methods of production of aluminium, namely, the Hall-Hèroult process and the electrolytical refining process, has been reviewed, and the new methods of direct reduction process, the chloride process, the organic compound process and the other refining process are introduced.
In the second section, the progress in the ingot making of light alloys has been reviewed and, following a description on the continuous or semi-continuous casting generally used in practice, the newly devised horizontal continuous casting processes of Tessman-Rossi, Gautsch-Ugin and Hunter-Douglas are introduced. The special casting methods of Properzi, Hazelett and the subaquatic casting devised by the present author have also been discussed.
In the third section, the progress in the foundry processes of light alloys, including sand casting, die casting, centrifugal casting and precision casting, has been reviewed.
In the fourth section, the author speaks on the progress in the methods of rolling, extrusion and forging in general, and touches upon some special rolled products, such as figured plates, shade screens and streckmetall. The Roll-Bond process, the tube-in-strip process, the method of production of sandwich plates and tapered plates have been also described in summary. Besides, the progress in heat-treatment inspection, methods of welding and joining are introduced.
In the fifth section, high purity aluminium and the aluminium as an electric conductor have been discussed and new heat-resisting, corrosion-resisting casting alloys are introduced.
The sixth section is concerned with the progress in the scientific research on aluminium and its alloys, including studies on their plastic deformation, age-hardening, metallography, method of analysis and utilization of radio-isotopes in the research works.