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Hydro Extrusion’s new aluminium recycling plant
Hydro Extrusion Hungary Kft., led by a Norwegian parent company, is building a new aluminium foundry in Székesfehérvár, Hungary, where 90,000 tonnes of aluminium will be produced annually by recycling production and other waste aluminium. Compared to the production from bauxite, this means 95% less energy consumption.
It is a site-specific feature that since the first halls were built, the city has grown around the area, this is why the protection of the area against noise and dust was a key concern; therefore, the entire production and storage process is located in an enclosed space inside the building.
One half of the hall is used for the storage and the preparation of aluminium scrap, which is then transferred from here to the production side. Here the material is melted, cleaned of other metals and impurities, and then transferred to casting pits more than 10 m deep (altogether 25 m, including the hydraulic work cylinder) below floor level. In these casting pits, 8 m long aluminium billets are produced using vertical casting technology. The billets are then cut to size by machines in the sawing area. The sawing machines have been isolated by using the house-in-house system in order to protect the workers from high noise exposure.
The hall also includes the office building, where the changing rooms and canteen are located, in addition to the workplaces for the administrative staff. The roof surfaces and the parking area have also been designed to be suitable for the installation of solar panels, so that in addition to supplying all the energy for the office building, part of the production can also be covered by renewable energy.
In the following posts, we will introduce the most exciting aspects of the project, such as the structure of the casting pits and the internal thermal insulation of the hall, which presented us with some unusual challenges.
If you are interested in the vertical casting technology and the recycling programme of the Székesfehérvár plant, check out the links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8J9IyCPZYo
https://www.hycast.no/products/cmv
Dániel Dobszai, Dávid Mészáros, Kamilla Zámbó, architects
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