Constellium, Paris, restarted its upgraded 144-inch cold rolling mill at its facility in Ravenswood, West Virginia in the presence of Senator Shelley Moore Capito and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy, Jesse Salazar.
The restart marks completion of the first phase of the project involving a complete teardown of the 1950s era mill to upgrade its mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, and process control systems. The team will now focus on the development of prototype manufacturing processes and cold rolled mill products that will be enabled by the advanced capabilities of the upgraded mill. Cold rolling, which compresses and elongates the plate, improves plate flatness and surface characteristics, and adds additional strength to the finished plate. Cold rolled aluminum plate was identified in the 2018 DoD-led Interagency Task Force report as “essential for armoring U.S. ground combat vehicles, constructing Navy ships, and building military aircraft.”
Ravenswood was awarded funding of nearly $9.5 million in 2019 by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) under the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) Program to increase throughput, quality, and performance of cold rolled aluminum.
Read further here.
