Research Projects

Secondary aluminium is produced from melting scrap from various sources, which makes its composition and properties unpredictable. The production of secondary aluminum consumes 90 % lesser energy than that required to produce primary aluminium. One strategy currently employed to use secondary aluminium is by ‘down-cycling’, where the recycled material is used in lower-value products (mostly cast products). Today, the processed secondary aluminium in forgings and extrusions finds fewer uses in industry. This is because the chemistry of the secondary aluminium has a large impact on the forging and forming window. Therefore, the problem in hand is can we process secondary aluminum into other ready-to-use products, like sheets and tubes? At the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, we have developed two new severe plastic deformation methods to produce sheet metal. One is known as High Pressure Compressive Reverse Shearing (HPCRS), and the other is Continuous Friction Assisted Lateral Extrusion Process (C-FALEP). These techniques have unique advantages of imposing large shear strain in a single step, the ability to control strength-ductility combinations, and being easily scalable for industrial-size sheet production. Another unique advantage of the process is to deform the material at higher temperatures. The temperature is generated in situ by changing the processing parameters. The large strain will help in deforming secondary precipitates into the nanoscale, and the temperature generated will assist in precipitation kinetics. Therefore, we propose to process secondary aluminium obtained by recycling various types of scraps into ready-to-use sheet metal with superior properties. Using these two unique processes, can we move towards ‘up-cycling, i.e., recycled material with superior properties than those made by primary production.