Conference Agenda

At EGA Jebel Ali site, the Direct Chilled (DC) casting complex “DC-5 caster” was installed at Casthouse 2 in 2003. The billet casting equipment was supplied by Wagstaff and has a production capacity of 60 t per cast. Aligned with EGA's core values of continuous improvement, management aims to enhance productivity and manufacturing capacity by exploring opportunities to increase productivity and casting capacity. Each cast involves significant consumption of consumables and demands considerable preparation time and effort from operators. The goal was to boost productivity per cast from 60 t to 70 t and reduce operational consumables.

EGA’s Casthouse in Al Taweelah is equipped with multiple large size hydraulic cylinders that are installed in Vertical Direct Chilled (VDC) casting facilities. These facilities are used for batch casting of billets and sheet ingots. The cylinder size varies between 10 to 12 meters of stroke length with a rod diameter of 800 mm. The function of these cylinders is to control the casting speed and provides support for the casting equipment weight. The casting batch weight varies between 80 to 120 tonnes.

The casting machine was taken up for major maintenance that involved pit repair and coating, cylinder inspection and overhaul work along with other associated tasks. This was the first intervention since the initial installation.

The following observations were made from the cylinder casing and the protection enclosure (caisson). The cylinder protective enclosure (caisson) was corroded and punctured, which exposed the cylinder casing to saline groundwater. The cylinder coating was also damaged with surface pitting and wall thinning due to corrosion.

The Casthouse operation and maintenance team implemented the best alternative solution for life extension of VDC hydraulic cylinder by providing innovative solutions. A double layer corrosion protection technique was applied in combination with an Impressed Current Cathodic Protection (ICCP) and a Sacrificial Anode Cathodic Protection (SACP). The combined approach contributes to eliminate unwanted production downtime and frequent hydraulic oil replacements.

In addition, this work also contributed to improving the following:

• EHS: Unwanted hydraulic oil replacements for a sustainable operation.

• Productivity: A reduction from 45 to 12 days of unplanned downtime to planned shutdown on all VDC facilities.

• Quality: Improved service life of the hydraulic cylinder and associated structures according to design values by providing an innovative corrosion protection system.

• Customer Satisfaction: Recognised by Al Taweelah casthouse operation teams due to machine uptime and improved hydraulic cylinder reliability.

In conclusion, this innovative approach provides improvements that have resulted in an audited annual savings of $ 2.2 million.

Aluminium Dunkerque produces and delivers aluminium slabs with raw surface after casting and sawing operations. At further stage, those slabs will be scalped and rolled by customers in secondary field. A certain type of slabs, particularly 5182 alloys, can be source of thin cracks. Those cracks are revealed during scalping and can lead to customer claims. However, those defects are hardly detectable in the upstream process because of their thickness and position (Some of them can be internal cracks).

Aluminium Dunkerque had the objective to protect customers by implementing a reliable quality wall before dispatching of their products. In this purpose, Aluminium Dunkerque has collaborated and still collaborates with Dynamic Concept Europe for finding an industrial and full automated machine able to detect those defects on raw surface without machining by respecting a limited cycle time.

Dynamic Concept Europe has started by listed the latest non-destructive testing technologies on the market and after having short listed the solutions, the ultrasonic inspection would be the best technology for this purpose. However, it was necessary to combine the most advanced features and software currently available on the market with an important part of development, choice was made to cooperate with TPAC who is matching all these criteria. Dynamic Concept Europe went through lab scale validations on some slab slices with positive results. Then, thanks to those positive achievements, Aluminium Dunkerque and Dynamic Concept Europe decided to develop and manufacture a prototype able to be used as industrial scale. This prototype has been a real success and it is now used into the slab storage by Aluminium Dunkerque. This prototype remains manual. The next step is to manufacture a standalone solution fully integrated in the sawing machine in order to detect those defects at early stage and avoid to bring adding value in potential scraped products. Thanks to IA, this equipment will allow to generate a catalogue of defects and achieve predictions and process adjustment in the casting process if required.

Hereby are some key parameters of this enhanced solution:

• Performed with a probe made up of 128 transmit and receive elements to achieve good coverage and insonification of the slab,

• Real-time Total Focusing Method (TFM) imaging allows ultra-fast and high-resolution inspection,

• Control speed up to 1 m/s with high resolution up to 1mm,

• Applicable on a raw foundry surface,

• Enables upstream process predictions and adjustments,

• Control of 100 % of the product volume (saleable portion).

Knowledge of chemical composition is important at multiple stages of smelter operations. At the electrolysis stage, impurities in the molten metal reveal the state of the reduction cells and the quality of raw materials. Further downstream, chemical analysis is crucial for monitoring the melt composition at the stages refining and alloying, and for maximizing the value of final smelter products. DTE has successfully implemented fully automated chemical analysis of the molten metal in primary and secondary casthouses, analysing metal from transport crucibles as well as furnaces, where real-time, minute-by-minute chemical information of the molten metal can assist in optimizing furnace operations. The performance of those plant implementations will be discussed, including analysis accuracy, concentration ranges, and long-term stability. DTE’s solution combines the connected analysers and an online cloud platform, IRIS, transforming the real-time chemical analysis results, along with other process data, into predictive insights and actionable information, leading to process improvements and increased operator safety. DTE recently supplied four automatic crucible analysis solutions to a primary aluminium smelter in Iceland. The automated systems are a crucial part of the metal treatment process for transporting crucibles in the smelter’s new billet casthouse. Having precise chemical composition information from the crucibles is essential for efficient furnace quality control during the alloying process. DTE’s solution was also integrated into a recycling furnace at a secondary aluminium production plant, now offering the customer real-time information on batch composition. This opens up opportunities to enhance furnace operation, increase throughput and optimize feedstock.