Vedanta Aluminium, India’s largest producer of aluminium, conducted a technical masterclass on ways to enhance productivity of the extrusion industry, with close to 300 participants from nearly 60 leading players in the extrusion segment, hailing from India, US, UK, Portugal, Greece, Australia, Israel and many more countries.

Extrusion is a process used to create objects of a fixed cross-section profile by pushing material through a die, giving excellent surface finish and considerable freedom of form in the design process. The masterclass was conducted by one of the world’s leading extrusion experts, Jonathan Pangborn, who serves as the Technical Advisor of Billet Extrusion for the company’s Customer Technical Services (CTS) cell. The masterclass was a part of Vedanta Aluminium’s plethora of offerings for customers, including new product development, new application development, market development, knowledge & technical expertise, and more. Students from India’s premier technical universities and institutes also attended the session.

Aluminium is the second most important metal in the world today, with unique properties such as high strength-to-weight ratio, exceptional design flexibility, corrosion-resistance, electrical conductivity, and eternal recyclability. These versatile properties of aluminium can be complemented by the versatility of the extrusion process to produce better quality products and increase productivity. Aluminium’s ability to be extruded into any shape – no matter how complex, with tight tolerances, make it an ideal material for design applications that require maximum versatility from a cross-sectional area.

This makes the aluminium extrusion industry unique with specialised requirements. With applications ranging from aviation to automobile, building & construction, infrastructure and more, to maintain a competitive edge, extruders have to master the properties of aluminium and deliver speed and excellent quality. Vedanta Aluminium currently offers a wide range of Billets in 1xxx, 3xxx and 6xxx alloy series, to the extrusion industry, tailored to their needs. The masterclass also saw Alok Ranjan (Chief Marketing Officer, Vedanta Aluminium) and Ram Sandipam Adhikary (Head – Customer Technical Services, Vedanta Aluminium), share insights on the company’s offerings and industry trends, with the participants.

Rahul Sharma, CEO, Vedanta Aluminium, said, “As India’s largest producer of aluminium and the country’s largest exporter of billets, we are flagbearers of quality, reliability and manufacturing excellence. Our expertise in producing the top-quality aluminium products is matched by our passion to bring global knowledge to the doorsteps of our customers. And hence, we have roped in some of the world’s leading metal experts in aluminium to work with us in augmenting our product and service offerings to our customers. The response to this masterclass has been extremely encouraging, and we plan to conduct many more such knowledge sharing sessions for our customers going forward.”

Jonathan Pangborn, Technical Advisor – Extrusion for Vedanta Aluminium, added, “Aluminium extrusions find applications in every aspect of modern human life, from the houses we live in, to the aeroplanes we fly in. With the diversity of aluminium applications rapidly evolving to enable decarbonisation of countries and companies, industries must leverage research knowledge to bring in a step change in their offerings. I am delighted to have the platform offered by Vedanta Aluminium in the form of a masterclass to share technical knowledge on topics such as alloy chemistry, temperature control design, process augmentation, etc. with the extrusion industry.”

Vedanta Aluminium, a business of Vedanta Limited, is India’s largest producer of aluminium, manufacturing more than half of India’s aluminium i.e., 2.26 million tonnes in FY22. It is a leader in value-added aluminium products that find critical applications in core industries. Vedanta Aluminium ranks 4th in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) 2021 world rankings for aluminium industry, a reflection of its sustainable development practices. With its world-class aluminium smelters, alumina refinery and power plants in India, the company fulfils its mission of spurring emerging applications of aluminium as the ‘Metal of the Future’ for a greener tomorrow.