Light Metals Project Distills Decades of Knowledge to Its Essential Elements

JOM, Mar 2013

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Light Metals Project Distills Decades of Knowledge to Its Essential Elements

0 John Johnson, Consultant, RUSAL Engineering & Technical Centre - Between the covers of Essential Readings in Light Metals is testament to the power of great ideas and the lasting impact of keen insight. Papers dating back to the 1962 AIME International Symposium on the Extractive Metallurgy of Aluminum present the foundation of current practice, while also illuminating directions for future progress. This is not a textbook, but a collection of the best papers from talented people representing leading aluminum companies, research institutions or themselves, said Geoff Bearne, Aluminum Reduction Technology volume editor. It presents the results and conclusions of more than a generation of work dedicated to improving the industry. In addition to Aluminum Reduction Technology, the Essential Readings collection is comprised of volumes on Alumina and Bauxite, Cast Shop for Aluminum Production, and Electrode Technology for Aluminum Productionall spanning more than 40 years of scholarship presented in the TMS Light Metals conference proceedings. Each volume was developed under the leadership of two or three editors coordinating teams of topic experts. The sheer magnitude of material that these individuals took on was staggering at least 1,000 papers per volume, with nearly 5,000 papers overall considered for the project. In total, 33 volunteers gave of their time and expertise to the effort, completing their work in less than a year. Despite the rather daunting metrics associated with the process, Alan Tomsett, Electrode Technology volume editor, said that he found it an enriching experience. It has been a pleasure rediscovering the older papers published in the Light Metals volumes through this project, he said. It is a credit to the organizers and authors that such a large proportion of the technical Many of the problems that we faceand the ideas that we have have existed before. Hopefully, these volumes will make it easier to learn from our predecessors. knowledge of our industry was originally published and presented at the TMS Annual Meeting. An easier approach to selecting the Essential Readings articles would have been to limit the volumes to the Light Metals Division Best Paper Award winners recognized through the years. The editorial teams, however, saw the undertaking as an opportunity to provide the industry with a comprehensive historical retrospective of industrial innovation. The project reminded me that we should spend more time looking back as part of the improvement process, said Bearne. Many of the problems that we faceand the ideas that we havehave existed before. Hopefully, these volumes will make it easier to learn from our predecessors. To accomplish this goal, the editorial teams established rigorous selection criteria that were applied to all papers, across all volumes. Priority was given to papers that described technological pact on the industry, or were highly rated by peers and other sources. Of particular interest were review papers that amassed contemporary thinking on key topics, but were still timeless in their relevance and application. Another unique challenge faced by the teams was simply gaining access to all the Light Metals proceedings from 1971 through 2011, since so much of the material pre-dated computerized publishing technologies and was not available electronically. It was also determined that papers from the 1962 AIME symposium should be considered, as it was viewed as the precursor to the TMS Light Metals symposia initiated nearly a decade later. A single copy of that events 1963 proceedings, Extractive Metallurgy of Aluminum, was eventually unearthed in a corporate library. Some of us working on the project werent even aware of that volumes existence until one of the teams discovered it and suggested that it be part of the selection process, said Matt Baker, TMS publications manager and the staff coordinator for the Earliest Papers and Their Impact: Donaldson: Basic Principles of Bayer Process Design, by A.N. Adamson, E.J. Bloore, and A.R. Carr from Extractive Metallurgy of Aluminum (1963) will be useful to anyone as an introduction to understanding the basics of Bayer Process technology. Raahauge: The oldest paper included on calcinations is from 1973 and describes the change from a vertical to a horizontal plant design of circulating competitive. There are also two papers [from the same timeframe] on alumina quality. One deals with the mineralogical dehydration path of gibbsite in rotary kilns and stationary calciners. This is fundamental for understanding the products of different calcinations technologies, with respect to producing optimized Donaldson: continuous operation started about the time that World War II began in Europe, alumina. It wasnt until 1967 that continuous precipitation was developed, using North American technology, for the production of sandy alumina. The use of Raahauge: In calcination, a technology shift away from rotary kilns to (...truncated)


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Light Metals Project Distills Decades of Knowledge to Its Essential Elements, JOM, 2013, Volume 65, Issue 3, DOI: 10.1007/s11837-013-0554-y