Alcan Engineered Products Opens R&D Capabilities to Third Parties

Alcan Engineered Products (Voreppe, France), a business unit of Rio Tinto, is opening the use of its cutting-edge research and development center dedicated to aluminum and its alloys to other companies.

This leading European research and development center has gained international renown since its opening. Previously focused exclusively on working with Rio Tinto businesses, the centre now plans to assist other industrial companies in developing state-of-the-art solutions.

?This broadening of our activities will encourage more holistic and more innovative solutions to the benefit of our existing and new clients,? said Didier Albert, sales development director of Alcan CRV Services.

Aluminum is becoming the material of choice for more and more industries. It is three times less dense than steel, indefinitely recyclable without the loss of any of its properties, extremely resistant to corrosion and offers a high thermal and electrical conductivity. As such, aluminum applications promote energy efficiency and reduced carbon footprints.

These intrinsic qualities have resulted in significant growth of the use of aluminum in such diverse sectors as road, rail, maritime and air transport; packaging; building and the energy sector.

?Developing new aluminum solutions and products requires strong expertise across a variety of areas such as product and process metallurgy, material characterization, forming, joining and surface treatment,? said Mr. Albert.

?The unique properties of aluminum make it a material of choice for many industries. For the first time, other companies can benefit from our longstanding and recognized expertise to design, model and test new applications to support their development,? added Mr. Albert.

The expertise and resources of Alcan CRV Services will support projects requiring multiple capabilities and disciplines. From the nano to the macroscopic scale, from technical assistance to metallurgical prototyping, Alcan CRV Services will allow companies to create and produce cost-effective tailored materials.

The solutions offered by Alcan CRV Services include training programs and an access to significant bibliographic resources, allowing companies to implement and tailor all the elements of their research and development programs, such as:

? Material characterization and analysis
? Corrosion study and treatment
? Material design and modeling assistance
? Production of metallurgical prototypes
? Thermal treatment
? Mechanical testing
? Forming
? Joining
? Surface treatment

Opened in 1967 and a part of Alcan Engineered Products since 2003, Alcan?s Voreppe Research Centre is responsible for a number of aluminum metallurgy innovations including the conception of alloys, metallurgic states, products, new functional applications and transformation and deployment processes.

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www.alcan-crvservices.com