HYBRAZ coating 'healthier' for aluminium tubes

In its latest issue, Automotive Industries reports on how the application of Sapa’s HYBRAZ coating benefits the overall performance of aluminium tubes in heat exchange applications.

The magazine article features Sapa’s Dagmar Steiner, who works for the company’s Precision Tubing Technology Center – the team devoted to applications and development in the field of aluminium tubing. The article explains the environmental, health and safety benefits, and heightened performance, that aluminium tubes attain when pre-treated with HYBRAZ coating. Sapa's HYBRAZ coating healthier for aluminium tubesUsing the pre-treated tubes in the manufacturing of aluminium heat exchangers leads to several improvements, compared with non-treated tubes.

One, it enables the customer to eliminate the entire fluxing process when assembling the heat exchanger, because the coating itself provides both the flux and necessary filler material to perform the brazing process. This means the person doing the assembly is spared contact with potentially harmful chemicals.

It also makes redundant the use of wet flux, which ultimately reduces the build-up of flux related to traditional brazing – and the harmful metals this is known to generate.

Reduced exposure

With the European Union’s introduction of the REACH and GHS programs, which have been designed to reduce workers’ exposure to harmful chemicals, the use of HYBRAZ-coated tubes has become even more relevant.

"Pre-coated aluminium components ensure that assemblers are no longer exposed to harmful chemicals when producing the tubes. Manufacturers are then in compliance with new regulations linked to REACH and the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS)," says Steiner.

Automotive Industries is distributed to automotive manufacturers and OEMs all over the world.