
Spanish racing driverFernando Alonso has added a one-off Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse to his growing collection of rare cars. Known as chassis 8.100, the car is distinguished by bespoke aluminium bodywork that required more than 20 tonnes of aluminium to produce, along with dedicated CAD programmes developed by Bugatti. Its history is equally distinctive, being produced after an original customer pushed Bugatti to create something it had initially considered too expensive. For Alonso, the automobile fits closely with an approach to luxury he outlined in 2024 about choosing manufacturers that treat individual customers differently rather than simply producing cars in larger numbers. To know the aluminium casting demand forecast in the transportation sector, explore our report "Global...
Ducati has unveiled the Desmo450 SM, a new production supermoto developed from its Desmo450 MX platform, featuring an aluminium twin-spar frame. This is designed to combine low weight, rigidity and strength. The motorcycle made its debut during World Ducati Week and is aimed at competition use. The Desmo450 SM uses the same aluminium frame architecture as the motocross model. Ducati says the frame has also been designed to allow a straighter intake route while maintaining the strength and rigidity needed for high-performance riding. The bike has a fuel capacity of 7.2 litres. The company has also focused on reducing weight in other areas. Its Bartubeless wheel system, for example, removes inner tubes and cuts rotating and unsprung mass by 1.2kg. The motorcycle also features a cast...
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RS Components, the trading brand of Electrocomponents plc, the global distributor for engineers, has vastly extended the range of capacitor technologies available from stock to customers worldwide, including aluminium electrolytic, film and ceramic capacitors, miniature inductors, filters, ferrites and more. This way, RS Components has leveraged upon its new global agreement with TDK Corporation. TDK Corporation is a leading electronics company. Its portfolio includes electronic components, modules and systems, power supplies, and magnetic application products as well as energy devices, flash memory application devices, and others. TDK focuses on demanding markets in the areas of information and communication technology and consumer, automotive and industrial electronics. The company has...

Light aircraft developer CubCrafters has secured US certification for its flagship piston-single, the XCub, following a six-year, clandestine development effort, and says it will deliver the first aircraft on 5 July. The carbon-fibre XCub is a US Federal Aviation Regulation Part 23 version of the nine-year-old Carbon Cub SS light sport aircraft; itself an updated variant of the out-of-production Piper Cub. "We have kept XCub development a secret from the start. We only wanted to publicise the programme once we had secured type certification," says John Whitish, director of global marketing for the Yakima, Washington-based company. The final product is a "lighter, faster and stronger aircraft than anything in its category," adds CubCrafters founder and chief executive Jim Richmond. "It...

Alubond USA has introduced the first A2 fire resistant aluminium composite panels, a first in the UAE. Aluminium composite wall systems, a critical class of components of the modern-day external cladding, symbolize the bustling landscape of the UAE. An aluminium composite panel consists of two aluminium skin coils sandwiching a central core of plastic plus mineral elements. The content of minerals in the core determines its fire resistance. The A2 fire resistant aluminium composite panels of Alubond USA have the highest mineral content in their core, which make them the safest products in the market for fire resistance. The Civil Defence is in the process of drafting the new UAE code of life and fire safety, expected to be released by the end of this month. The Civil Defence regulations...

Royal Canadian Legion Branch 269 has new murals up on the building. Legion president Bill Cavanagh said about four years ago they realized that something had to be done about the old murals as they were falling apart. He added that when the Legion approached an artist, they realized restoration wasn’t possible with the material that was there so it had to be replicated. “The original mural is 16 years old and we are looking to hopefully get it down to the museum, at least the portion [of the mural] with the people on it. It can’t be restored. It can be kept as original artwork,” he said. The new murals are made of aluminium instead of plywood and hence have a longer lifespan. “Murals on aluminium panels instead of plywood so they can’t corrode or rot,” said Cavannah. The old murals will...

A hull manufacturer is on target with its multi-million-pound investment in a new factory site in east Hull, United Kingdom. Eltherington, which supplies architectural aluminium and fabrication services to the construction, modular and leisure home sectors, is due to complete the latest phase of its development of the former Seven Seas site in Hedon Road next month. The next phase will see two glazing factories move into a new 9,000sqm factory in August and the company will then move its leisure cladding operation into the same building. By the end of the year, Eltherington's leisure business will be managed and produced from the new Hedon Road site.

Global HVDC capacitor market is forecasted to grow at 15.19 per cent CAGR and reach $4.36 billion by 2020. The rising demand for electricity has placed huge pressure on the current power generation infrastructure. Besides power generation, transmission loss is also one of the key concerns because enormous transmission losses are being incurred by the existing AC transmission. Hence, HVDC transmission has become an interesting substitute across the globe due to its asynchronous interconnection, low transmission losses, and the capability to deliver bulk power for long distance transmissions. The declining technology cost and growing government incentives is aiding the implementation of the HVDC technology. HVDC capacitors have many applications in commercial, energy and power, industrial,...

The global market for lightweight aluminium pistons is growing owing to the rising sales of automobiles. A recently published market research observes, the stakeholders of the global automobile industry are focusing on the lightweight vehicles for better fuel efficiency in turn increasing the market demand for the lightweight aluminium pistons market. Abundant availability of raw material and mass production facilities for lightweight aluminium pistons are also driving the market demand for the global lightweight aluminium piston market, the report suggests. Automotive pistons are metal piece, tubular in shape which provides mechanical energy by moving up and down in engine cylinder which is necessary to drive shaft and in turn the vehicle wheels. A piston should have low weight,...

Rexam, a leading global can maker, has partnered with British craft beer brand, Hobsons, to launch ‘The Hat Collection’, the brand’s first ever range of canned beers. Traditionally a cask and bottled brewer, Hobsons is moving to aluminium beverage cans with a range that includes The Skimmer (Straw Boater), an easy, light and fruity Pale Ale, The Explorer (Pith Helmet), a bold, amber and tropical IPA and The Stove Pipe (Top Hat), a smooth, dark and malty Stout. The new range, inspired by the symbolic coke hat, showcases the Hobsons logo with each beer named and designed around a different hat’s personality. Translated onto can by Rexam’s experts, the bold, bright designs reflect the different flavour profiles of the beers and are finished with a matt over varnish, giving a premium look and...

Print & Deliver has designed a small aluminium tin, shaped like a suitcase. The exterior branding can be customised with an agency logo, name and their own image if they wish, and the tin filled with a variety of items to make a long flight or road journey that bit more comfortable. Business development manager Brian Kane not only acknowledges the practicality of the tin for travellers, but also its usefulness as a soft advertising tool for independent travel agencies. “That’s the whole idea, to give the independent stores a chance to stand shoulder to shoulder with the bigger players in terms of getting their names out there,” he says. Items offered in the tin’s standard package include ear plugs, a travel toothbrush, wet wipes, tissues, boiled sweets, an airline headphone adapter and...

Engineers at the University at Buffalo, New York (US), have placed a single layer of the two-dimensional semiconductor molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) on top of an optical nanocavity made of aluminum oxide and aluminum. The nanocavity can increase the amount of light that this ultrathin semiconducting material absorbs, which could foster a new generation of more powerful and efficient thin-film solar panels, flexible optoelectronics, faster photodetectors for video cameras and more. A nanocavity is an arrangement of mirrors that allows beams of light to circulate in closed paths. “These cavities help us build things like lasers and optical fibers used for communications,” says co-lead researcher Haomin Song, a PhD candidate in the lab lead by Qiaoqiang Gan, PhD, assistant professor of...

El Paso, Texas’ Southwest University Park recently debuted a new all-aluminium façade reminiscent of wooden slats of the days of yore. Ball-Nogues Studio’s “Not Whole Fence” surrounds the play of the San Diego Padres’ Triple-A affiliate El Paso Chihuahuas, which is an installation of public art that went from drawing board to reality in under a year. The piece is comprised of 200 CNC-milled custom extrusions with conveniently placed “knotholes” whereby passing pedestrians may spy upon the goings-on of the ball diamond. “The structural quality of the fence creates a sense of mystery,” explained Ball-Nogues Studio’s principal Benjamin Ball. “By allowing mostly partial views of the action inside the ballpark, it calls for the imagination to conjure up the rest of the picture, creating a...

The 4th Automotive Lightweight Supply-Chain Symposium will be kicked off on the 11th of July 2016 in the days leading up to the DIECATING CHINA EXHIBITIONS in Shanghai, China. The symposium offers the perfect setup to interchange with OEM speakers and delegates from BMW, Changan, Honda, SAIC/GM, Dongfeng Nissan, Chery and JLR among others. Keynote speaker Mr. Stefan HEIL, Executive Director Vehicle Manufacturing Engineering at SAIC/GM, will focus on how the all new Cadillac CT6 is manufactured and how challenges were mastered designing the car. BMW procurement executive Mr. ZANGERLE is another key speaker this year. His speech will focus on strategic localization of casting suppliers. Focus of Mr. Yao`s presentation, Engineering Manager at Shiloh Industries Asia, is multi-material &...

One of China’s biggest homegrown automotive design firms is taking the plunge into producing its own electric roadster, seeking to stand out from the gaggle of Chinese electric vehicle startups, as well as Tesla Motors Inc., by making a car with materials found more commonly in business jets and mega-yachts. Qiantu Motor, set up by car design company Beijing CH-Auto Technology Co., is currently building a factory in the eastern city of Suzhou to produce the electric car with a carbon-fibre body and aluminium frame, Chairman Lu Qun said in an interview. The sports car, K50, is to debut next year with a starting price of about 700,000 yuan (RM432,000), he said, comparable to Tesla’s Model S, which is made of aluminium. The price is about a third of the BMW i8, which also features a...

A growing number of craft brewers are canning their beer and there are definitely advantages to the aluminium packaging over bottles. Cans don't let any light in, keeping the beer fresher for longer, and are quicker to cool in the fridge. London-based FourPure were the first micro brewers in the UK to put their beer in cans, including their seasonal specials. Their Beertooth American brown ale, packed with flavour and just the right level of bitterness, is my personal favourite. In Ireland, Metalman Brewing in Co Waterford were the first to take up the aluminum baton in 2014. Their pale ale is smooth and crisp with subtle citrus flavours and medium hop finish. If you want to sample Metalman's beers, they are holding a tap takover at Belfast's Brewbot on June 22. Whiplash is something of a...

Tropical Cable and Conductor Limited (TCCL), an indigenous aluminium and copper electrical and telephone cable manufacturer, says it is continuously investing heavily in quality management systems to promote integrity and quality of the company’s products. Speaking at a seminar for newly-certified electrical wiring professionals in Accra, the Marketing and Business Development Manager of TCCL, Nana Kwame Oteng-Gyasi, said the company - which has been International Standard Organisation (ISO) 9001 certified for almost 10 years - on average spent US$200,000 annually on quality systems. He explained that the investments were channeled into laboratory testing equipment, production systems, and on personnel to ensure the company’s products meet international standards. TCCL organised the...

A retired Clinton builder could soon become the brains behind the homes thousands of Fijians will live in, that are made almost completely out of aluminium. John Baldock is hopeful he will be awarded the tender to re-build 2200 homes that were destroyed during Cyclone Winston. His plan? To build them from Gladstone aluminium so some of the money comes back to the city that he and wife Lynn have spent 43 years. But, as he's now finding out, there's little chance of that happening. There's even less chance of him getting his hands on any Australian aluminium; the industry has shrunk that much in the past two years, despite being the largest producer of bauxite, the main ingredient in aluminium. Our local smelter, Boyne Smelters Limited, doesn't have the capability to make slab aluminium,...

Panasonic has developed ‘Conductive Polymer Hybrid Aluminium Electrolytic Capacitors’, said to feature large capacitance and large current in compact size, suited for automotive ECUs, power supply circuits of HEV, EV and gasoline-powered vehicles. The capacitors measure 10 x 10.2mm and are said to enable automotive ECU downsizing with instantaneous large current supply into the power supply circuits, contributing to direct mounting on automotive engine ECUs and electromechanical integration. In accordance with the improvement of fuel consumption of eco-cars and environment regulations, increasing the number of ECUs, direct mounting on engines instead of engine rooms, electromechanical integration is required. For capacitors, compact size, large capacity and large current are required for...

The Amazon Fire 10 was released in September of 2015, and brought major changes to the UI and a larger screen to the Fire family. While it was praised for the more colorful and inviting UI, the plastic construction and low pixel density turned off many users. But there was no denying that it was of good value for the relatively low price of $229.99. Now Amazon is fixing one of the original gripes: the construction. Starting today, the Amazon Fire 10 can now be purchased with a silver aluminium chassis, and Amazon claims that it is now twice as durable as the iPad Air 2 in everyday tumbles. The best part is that the aluminium model is the same price as its plastic counterpart. Amazon has also released a 64GB storage option that is only available with the aluminium model. In terms of specs,...