Aluminium Profiles
You can have all your profiles extruded at ALUDEX!
Thanks to our year-long experience in the world of aluminium extrusions, we can be of help to you in a great number of areas. Besides the already described speciality of CNC profile machining and assembly, we would be happy to give you advice with regard to:
- designing aluminium extrusion profiles
- purchasing (e.g. the concluding of hedge deals)
- surface treatment (e.g. anodising, powdercoating)
- assembly (e.g. mounting parts together)
Before you can go ahead and get an aluminium profile extruded, you need to be sure that the profile design actually fulfills its required function. If you need to assess afterwards that the profile doesn’t comply with its defined functionality, then unnecessary costs have been made (e.g. diecosts) and lots of time is lost. Therefore it is important that this goes right from the beginning. We can certainly assist you in this process with our year-long experience in this area. We also have excellent expertise in the functioning of the profile in your semi-finished or finished product. Our CAD engineers work with the latest design programmes of SolidWorks and AutoCAD.
Extrusion
When extruding the aluminium profiles, a part of an aluminium billet is pressed with great force through a metal die. The die’s openings allow the required aluminium profile to be created. The complexity and feasibility of a profile depends mainly on the size of the profile (the circumscribed circle), the number of hollow spaces in the profile, the aluminium alloy (e.g. EN AW 6060, 6063, 6082, 6005, 7020 etc.) and the required surface quality (decorative, industrial). When the profiles come out of the extrusion press, they undergo various treatments such as cooling, stretching, sawing, stress relieving treatment and wrapping. A surface treatment often follows, as the final application of an aluminium profile often also serves an optical purpose. This happens mostly by anodising or powder coating the profile. When anodising, an aluminium oxide skin is applied in an electrolytic way which ensures a natural hard and wear-resistant surface. Moreover, it gives the aluminium a nice, uniform and matt colour. Various lacquering techniques are available for the lacquering process, powder coating being the most common one. During this process, electrically charged particles of epoxy- or polyester powder are applied to the aluminium. Then, the whole is put into an oven where the powder melts and so ensures a smooth and wear-resistant skin on the aluminium. Nearly all desired colours and metallics are available. Earlier in the text, the extrusion, anodising and coating of aluminium profiles have only been explained briefly. Please contact our employees, should you be interested in more detailed technical information. One or more finishings, mostly machining, will nearly always follow, as an extruded, anodised or lacquered profile will hardly ever be used in this – unmachined – form. These processes are described in the chapter Aluminium Machining.
On the right side of this page, you'll find only a very few examples of the endless number of possible profile designs. Below you can watch a short movie of the extrusion process.
