Light Metals Project Distills Decades of Knowledge to Its Essential Elements
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John Johnson, Consultant, RUSAL Engineering & Technical Centre
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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)