Material Demand Reduction and Closed-Loop Recycling Automotive Aluminium

ABSTRACTEnvironmentally aware automotive manufacturers recycle aluminum production scrap in closed-loop systems to generate environmental and financial savings. Further savings could be gained if material demand is reduced, through improving the material utilization of the production process. Since a more efficient production process generates less scrap, the opportunity for closed loop recycling reduces when material demand reduces. This paper investigates the interaction between material demand reduction and closed loop recycling for an aluminum intensive case-study vehicle. It identifies the greatest environmental and financial savings when both strategies are implemented together. It is shown that a ‘recycled content’ target does not capture these saving opportunities. It is recommended that automotive manufacturers set targets for both material utilization and scrap recovery, to simultaneously promote closed-loop recycling and material demand reduction.

Application of Sand Casting to Recycle Aluminum Alloy for Motorcycle Brake Handle

The development of the automotive industry brings impact of increasing use of aluminum for vehicle components that will ultimately produce more aluminum waste. If it is not addressed properly, it will be a serious problem for the environment. One of the solutions is to recycle the waste of drum brake to be a raw material for motorcycle accessories brake handle. The process of making motorcycle brake handle using the sand casting method can be done by varying the temperatures of casting molten metal which are at temperatures of 650°C, 700°C and 750°C. Furthermore, the testing of the mechanical properties and microstructure of the resulted product is done. The result shows that motorcycle brake handle required high impact strength in which the highest impact strength was 0.011 Nm/mm2 that was obtained when temperature of casting was 700°C.

Processing Aluminum Scrap Vial Mechanical Alloying and Subsequently Hot Extrusion

Recycle aluminum cans, an alternative route is presented in this work. The aluminum cans are cut in little flakes with a shears, and then the materials were milled, obtained fine powders. The weight ratio of the balls to powder was 10 to 1. Equipment of a horizontal high energy ball mill was utilized. The powder mixture was processed during 0.5, 1 and 2 hours at 950 rpm and after milling, the powders were directly hot extrusion. The extruder bars were submitted at a tensile tests and samples microstructures were analyzed by optical microscope. Experimental results obtained shows that the technique utilized in this work is very important for economized routes and consequently, less expensive, as compared with conventional methods.